WASHINGTON -- A leafless pin oak, its trunk still the girth of a wrist, took its place among a garden of giants on the Capitol grounds on Wednesday as tribute to former House speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, a towering figure in the political landscape here and in the Bay State.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, her chamber’s first female House speaker, presided over a tree-planting ceremony that praised O’Neill for being a “bonafide American hero.”