51�Թ�

Each acorn was painted with colored bands to indicate its species: red oak, bur oak, black oak, white oak, swamp white oak, scarlet oak, pin oak, willow oak.

But minutes later, Jones and Mathews County Board of Supervisors chair Paul Hudgins — who had joined him in the shade under a willow oak tree — were a bit more vague.

The 540-square-foot house sits on a stone plaza shaded by a willow oak, about 50 feet from its original location along a canal that once flowed through what is now Constitution Avenue.

His wife dead, his own hand dug the grave under a willow oak, in family ground — he got home sick, was dead when morning came.

Many trees seemed to remain fully dressed in green and leafy garb, although curbside trash bags bulged with the fallen brown leaves of willow oaks.