Standing at the intersection of Rockville Pike and Beach Drive is a tree known to locals as The Linden Oak. It is one of the largest (Quercus Alba) in the state of Maryland and the largest in Montgomery County.

Estimates indicate that this towering specimen seeded in 1718, meaning that it is over 300 years old. In addition to being on the scene nearly 50 years before the American Revolution, the Linden Oak dodged another brush with death in 1973, when the western portion of the Washington Metro was being constructed. 

Former city council member and state senator Idamae Garrott lobbied to push the construction of the Grosvenor Metro Station slightly westward in order to save the tree in 1973. Garrott’s legacy lives on with one of three memorial plaques in the area near the Linden Oak recounting her heroic activism in saving the tree. 

Another plaque placed by the Maryland Centennial Commission and the Maryland Forest Service recognizes the tree as Maryland’s bicentennial tree.

A third plaque recounts the tree surviving the American Revolution and predating George Washington’s birth by 25 years.

Update as of June 2023: The parks department announced that due to poor health, the tree is going to be removed.