A Columnar Oak With Marcescence In Our Neighborhood

It is sure feeling like Spring around these parts.  But, this columnar Oak tree that I came across on a walk sure isn't in the mood to bud out.  It is still clinging to it's Fall leaves.  This is a parkway tree, so it was planted by the forestry or arborist division of the Village of Downers Grove public works department as part of their parkway tree program.  I mentioned/covered the species that they have available in this post about our own parkway tree at the very end of 2019 and sure enough...one of the Spring-planted trees are Oaks.  They list them as (various species) in their handout.

Might be a Columnar English Oak?  This Monrovia listing shows it down to Zone 5. 

This is a lovely parkway tree and the marcescence adds some drama to the curbside that's for sure.  I've covered the concept of marcescence (trees like this one retaining leaves through all of/part of Winter) on the blog.  And we see it with our own Oak trees and the row of Frans Fontaine Hornbeams.   For screening, this certainly is a nice feature, right?  I suppose, we need to think about columnar Oaks again, eh?