Dallas Nurseryman to Propagate a New Tree Species

Thirty-five years ago, Bob Piaschyk had no idea that a routine delivery of some live oak trees to his family-owned nursery outside of Dallas would launch a lifelong, dogged pursuit of a new species.

That sunny day so many years ago, as his shipment was being unloaded from the delivery truck, the sharp-eyed Piaschyk noticed three specimens that were not like the others.

These three didn’t quite look like what live oaks — or any tree he was familiar with — are supposed to look like. As the owner of a large and reputable garden center called Treeland, Piaschyk knows how various species are supposed to look.

These three stood out.

“They were some sort of cross,” he said. “I wasn’t sure what, but I knew they weren’t pure live oaks.”

Curious, he pulled the interlopers aside. Some might have tossed the oddball specimens in the waste bin, but a natural curiosity led Piaschyk to hang on to the trees.

For many years, he left these botanical oddities in their containers, nurturing and watching them, but not ready to commit them to earth.

At some point, Piaschyk and his wife, Pat, moved their growing business to larger grounds, a 40-acre verdant paradise in tiny Gunter, Texas, that Piaschyk fondly refers to “the farm.”

Here, the curious tree farmer finally put his unusual specimens — two of which were similar, while the third was different — into the ground. As they matured, one of the trees — the true anomaly — morphed into a showstopper.

But what species was this tree?

“It’s complete guesswork. You see tendencies in the bark, the branching, and you speculate,” says Piaschyk. “It kind of looks like a cross between a live oak and a burr oak.”

“The leaves,