(Even More) Northernmost Oaks!

After reading a short document published on this website by Norwegian forestry students Gerhard Sørensen-Fuglem and Cecilia Piccirilli Bjerkeset, in which they describe the most northerly oak as being at 68°N, I took them up on the challenge posed at the end of the article: “to find an oak tree situated further north.”

I didn’t know of one at the time, but I wanted to find it, and my quest was very rewarding.

Several Norwegian botanists, environmentalists, and forestry people aided me in my search, which took me ever northwards, from Oslo through Harstad, Tromsø, and ultimately to Lattervik in Lyngen Municipality in northern Norway.

All the trees I found were planted by homeowners bringing acorns and saplings from Oslo and southern Sweden. Each had a story, and all the trees were in good health, usually around seventy to ninety years old.

It’s a story of its own, finding the trees, but that is for another day. For the purposes of record I still think Gerhard and Cecilia’s discovery is the most northerly English oak (Quercus robur), but mine are as follows;

• 68.79937°N - Harstad, private garden: Q. ×rosacea
• 68.90160°N - Harstad, private garden: Q. ×rosacea
• 68.82910°N - Kaltdalen, private garden: Q. ×rosacea ( I’ve named it Inger’s Oak-after the lady who planted it.)
• 68.93840°N - Grytøya, private garden (small tree): Q. ×rosacea
• 68.64556°N - Tromsø, roadside: Q. ×rosacea
• 68.64556°N - Tromsø, private garden: Q. petraea (possibly)
• 69.70100°N - Kvaløya, by a stream next to a private garden: Q. ×rosacea

And the most northerly oak in the world (to date):

• 69.74417°N - Lattervik, private garden: Q. ×rosacea (should be called Randi’s Oak, after the homeowner)

Lattervik means “Laughter Bay”. The tree was planted as a sapling by the owner’s husband in 1969 and is currently around 15–20 ft tall.

I haven’t given precise locations because nearly all the trees are privately owned. As an arborist I have done my best to identify the hybrids, but the leaves weren’t fully out and of course there are no acorns so far north, so the identification I did (May 2024) was from dead leaves.

I have photographs of all the oaks and can be contacted by email for more details if required.

Further article (hopefully) to be published soon, with more detail. I will update.

The quest to find the most northerly oak would have been impossible without the kindness and generosity of:

• Gyrd Harstad
• Cathrine Amundsen
• Unni Gamst
• Torbjørn Dale
• Torbjørn Alm
• Øystein Normann
• John Edward Oliver (my father) who helped with the identification.

I didn’t “discover” these trees. I was pointed in the right direction by Norwegians who had heard of/knew of their existence.

David William Oliver (BSc)
Wiltshire, England