I once took a business trip to Andrews, Texas. Never heard of it? Me neither, at the time.

Andrews is west of Midland and Odessa, near the New Mexico border, not too far from Carlesbad. That’s West Texas, not quite desert, but close enough. It is in the southern part of the Great Plains. It’s flat, it’s hot, and you can see for miles.

I was out in the oilfield, watching a workover crew replace an electrical subsurface pump in an oil well. But at the back of my mind, something kept nagging.

I finally realized it was all these little, tiny bushes, no more than two feet tall that I kept seeing everywhere. I had vaguely seen them for miles on the drive out to Andrews, and they were all around the rig area, outside the barbed-wire fence. Those little bushes looked somehow familiar, but I could not place why they looked familiar, or even exactly what they were.

Finally I gave up and asked a roustabout. He said, “Oh, those are oak trees.”

“Naaaaahhhh,” I said. “You’re kidding!” 

“Nope,” he said, “Come over here and take a look.” 

So we went over to the fence, and up close, sure enough, they were oaks. You could see the little tiny leaves, the typical oak colors and shapes, the bark, and all. “I didn’t know there were miniature oak trees!”

“Oh, they’re regular oaks,” he said. “They are just stunted because they don’t get much water. They are all over this part of the country.

“In fact, Andrews has the largest oak forest in the world. It’s just mostly made up of trees about two feet tall. Around the creeks, where there’s more water, they get up to regular size.”

And there you have it. The largest oak forest in the world is in West Texas.

You just have to look real close, or you’ll miss it.