So, those of you who are up to speed on your big tree news may already know this -- but one of the world's largest trees collapsed in flames last weekend. It was one of those news oddities that got picked up on morning radio stations and when I heard the story, you can imagine I went straight to the interwebs to investigate more.
'The Senator' as the tree was lovingly nicknamed, was a baldcypress growing in Longwood, Florida. Today I was on the National Mall and snapped a few shots of The Senator's genetic cousin, Taxodium ascendens. Baldcypresses can be the East Coast's largest trees and The Senator was designated in 2006 as the largest tree (of any species) east of the Mississippi. It was estimated to be about 3,500 years old, ranking it as the fifth oldest tree in the world.
While this species on the mall is probably about 50-65' high, The Senator was 165' high until 1929 when a hurricane topped it. Shortly before its demise the plant stood at about 125' - just 25' shy of the Statue of Liberty. The diameter of the trunk measured at just over 17'. That's probably about 5-6 times bigger than the tree in these photos. Those dimensions are quoted in this article, though it should be noted that arson is no longer being considered as a source of the fire that ultimately felled the tree.
Balcypresses are given their name since they are deciduous cypresses, losing their leaves in the winter, which is a rare occurrence for a gymnosperm (i.e. non flowering plant). The habit is upright and conical. The plants thrive in swamps and saturated conditions. It's this tolerance to anaerobic conditions that have lead to its more frequent use as street trees (since the conditions under concrete sidewalks are similarly limited in oxygen).
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