…under whose o’erspreading branches the California Lancers mulled their endgame, is gone at the Rancho Verdugo. But a few yards up the slope there yet stands another oak, as magnificent as any in California, whose branches once interlaced with those of its famous partner.

With its immense size and age it may have been a youngster in 1847, when a Jesus Pico was paroled to parlay with his cousin Andres, to negotiate peace with Fremont. It may have been listening as the men parlayed, the horses whinnied, and the wounded Lancers called out from the corredore for aguardiente… Ah, Romance, the enemy of History.

Still, it’s a magnificent oak in its own right.