In Marietta National Cemetery there lie not quite 19,000 graves of men and women who served their country. One of them is my uncle Robert Northington Hardeman III, known to his family and friends as Bobby.

He died, still a teenager, during the Battle of Saipan (June 15-July 9, 1944) in the Pacific.

Marietta National Cemetery, like many cemeteries, is a tranquil site, where many of the graves are shaded by mature trees.

Those trees are chestnut oak (Quercus montana), which is in the white oak grouping of oak trees.

The leaves of the chestnut oak have many shallow lobes, not unlike the leaf of a chestnut tree.

By the way, you do know how many wonderful trees you can find at Oakland Cemetery, don’t you? About 1,600, in fact. It’s a marvel. I highly recommend a walk there, sometime soon.