THE LIVE OAK

The Live Oak tree, so named because it stays green year round, is everywhere in Louisiana. They are beautiful trees, often old and huge and gnarled. Draped with spanish moss, ferns growing on the branches--they are true fairy-tale trees, eco-systems all their own. They don't look anything like northern White or Red Oaks. They have little leaves and they crawl outward, burley. A low center of gravity helps keep them stable in the hurricane winds. People here know a lot about these trees and clearly feel tenderly toward them. They really define a certain Southern Feeling that I keep getting. This particular Live Oak (in the pic above) was in New Iberia, LA. In front of an old plantation house.