Seedlings From Famed Salem Oak Coming to Morris County

MORRISTOWN, NJ — The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is spreading the wealth of one of New Jersey's best-known trees this year in honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

The state's DEP announced Friday it will distribute seedlings from the famed Salem Oak tree to all 565 of New Jersey's municipalities, including 39 Morris County towns, during the last week of April 2020.

Weather permitting, seedlings will be shipped out in time for them to be planted on April 24, or Arbor Day. This is the day when weather conditions are said to be best for planting successful trees.

This year marks both the 50th anniversary of the NJDEP and of Earth Day, the latter of which falls during the same week as Arbor Day.

According to a press release from Morris County, some 1,200 seedlings were sprouted from acorns collected before the Salem Oak fell in June 2019. They're now being grown in a greenhouse at the New Jersey Forest Service Nursery in Jackson Township.

The Salem Oak tree is said to have been more than 500-years-old at the time it fell from its position on West Broadway in the Salem Friends Burial Grown.

Before its demise, the tree was ranked among the state's largest white oak trees with a crown spanning 104 feet, a height of more than 100 feet, and a trunk circumference of approximately 22 feet.

It was the only surviving tree from the original forest that covered the land when the area was first seen by Quaker John Fenwick in 1675. It is said that Fenwick signed a peace tree with Lenni Lenape Native Americans under the tree's branches, the county said in a press release.

“Generations of New Jerseyans will reap the benefits of this extraordinary planting,” DEP Commissioner Catherine McCabe said in a statement.