Tree is a woody plant that regularly renews its growth. Most plants classified as trees have a single self-supporting trunk containing woody tissues, and in most species the trunk produces secondary limbs, called branches. A tree is any plant with the general form of an elongated stem, or trunk, leaves or branches at some distance above the ground. Trees usually reproduce using seeds. Trees are best known for providing us with oxygen, but they’re also beautiful living organisms that can live for thousands of years. Trees play a significant role in reducing erosion and moderating the climate. They remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store large quantities of carbon in their tissues. Trees and forests provide a habitat for many species of animals and plants. They provide an inner peace.. ‘Ancient and Famous Trees’ refers to trees that are on the List of Ancient and Famous Trees under Protection for being over a hundred years old, for belonging to precious species, being distinctive, for having a rare shape or due to their special historical or cultural significance. Here are the 10 Famous Trees in the world.
1.Cedars of God
Cedars of God is the most famous cedar patch and one of the last vestiges of old-growth small forests. It is of about 400 Lebanon Cedar trees in the mountains of northern Lebanon. It is also one of the rarest sites where the Cedrus libani still grows. The forest is rigorously protected. The “Committee of the Friends of the Cedar Forest” initiated a reforestation program in 1985. It is the symbol of the country, its pride, and features prominently on the Lebanese flag. Their bark is dark gray but the wood is beautiful light tone, hard and astonishingly decay resistant. These are tall trees with large trunks and massive, irregular heads of spreading branches.
These trees remain ever green, never shed their leaves, and are always fragrant. It is said that god himself planted these cedars. Cedar trees survive five millenniums. Phoenicians used cedar wood to build their ships. The ancient Egyptians used its resin in mummification and King Solomon used the famous trees in the construction of the First Temple in Jerusalem.In the Ottoman Empire Cedar tree timber was used to construct railways. Cedar trees symbolize resilience, immortality, strength, and elevation. The mountains of Lebanon were once covered with Cedar trees.
2.Tree of Life
The Tree of Life in Bahrain is a mesquite tree which grows in the middle of Arabian desert. The meaning of the Tree of Life is “A Connection to Everything” represents you are never alone you should be connected to the world. Tree of Life explains how family grows and expands throughout many generations. Tree of Life symbolizes individuality, strong throughout their life time for unique experiences. It is also a symbol for peacefulness and relaxation. The tree is said to be 400 to 500 years old. A soil and dendrochronology analysis conducted in the 1990s concluded that the tree was an Acacia planted in 1582. Both its age and its location definitely make this tree a survivor, which is considered to be a remarkable natural wonder of the world witnessed by most who visit Bahrain.
Its long roots probably have found some underground water source, but it is still a miracle as it is the only green living organism live a vast and barren desert. Bahrain has little to no rain throughout the year. The local inhabitants believe that this was the actual location of the Garden of Eden. The tree is a local tourist attraction and is visited by approximately 65,000 people every year. The yellow resin is used to make candles, aromatics and gum; the beans are processed into jam, meal and wine.
3.General Sherman
General Sherman, named to honor United States Union Army General Williom T. Sherman, is the largest of three trillion trees on Earth. General Sherman is a Giant Sequoia located in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park in California since 1931. Potwisha Indians led cattleman Hale Dixon Tharp to Giant Forest in September 1858. Naturalist John Muir, who visited Tharp later, explored and named Giant Forest in 1875. Although both men neither claimed or received credit for its discovery. The famous trees of the Giant Forest are among the largest trees in the world, if measured by volume.
At 11.1 meter (36.5 ft) along the base he General Sherman tree is the largest of them all. While it is the largest tree known, the General Sherman Tree is neither the tallest known living tree on Earth , nor is it the widest, nor is it the oldest known living tree on Earth. With a height of 83.8 metres (275 ft), a diameter of 7.7 m (25 ft), an estimated bole volume of 1,487 m3 (52,513 cu ft), and an estimated age of 2,300–2,700 years, it is nevertheless among the tallest, widest, and longest-lived of all trees on the planet. It is the world’s largest tree. It is old, but not that old. The General Sherman was named after the American Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman.
4.Avenue of the Baobabs
The baobab trees can live up to be 800 years old. It originally stood in a dense tropical forest in the area. The baobab trees, known locally as renala (Malagasy for “mother of the forest”), are up to 2,800 years old. The Avenue of the Baobabs itself is only around 260m(850 ft) long with no more than 25 trees standing about 30 tall. The Avenue of the Baobabs is a group of famous trees lining the dirt road between Morondava and Belon’i Tsiribihina in western Madagascar. Along a 260 m (850 ft) stretch of the road is a grove of 20–25 Adansonia grandidieri baobabs. An additional 25 or so trees of this species are found growing over nearby rice paddies and meadows within 9.9 acres (4 ha) of land. The trees, which are endemic to Madagascar, are about 30 m (98 ft) in height. Some 7 km (4.3 mi) to the northwest are the Baobab Amoureux, which are two notable Adansonia za trees that have become twisted to each other as they grew.
Despite its popularity as a tourist destination, the area has no visitor center or gate fees, and local residents receive little income from tourism. Fanamby, a Malagasy non-governmental organization, has launched an ecotourism project aimed at conservation of the area and economic improvement for the local community since 2014 and has inaugurated infrastructures to help them promote the area in 2018. More and more of the forest around Morondova has been cleared for agriculture to help the growing population in the area. One of the main reason that the once dense Baobab forest is gone is that the roots of the tree can handle the constantly waterlogged soil well as compared to few other trees in the area that soak up the rainwater. Another reason is that every year some of the Baobabs are hit by lightning and also from the cyclones that hit’s the west coast of Madagascar every year.
5.Socotra Dragon Tree
The Dragon blood tree is arguably the most famous and distinctive plant of the island of Socotra. It has a unique and strange appearance, having the shape of an upside-down umbrella. This evergreen species is named after its dark red resin, that is known as “dragon’s blood”. The huge packed crown provides sufficient shade in order to reduce evaporation. It has many branches; it grows by dichotomy, which means that each branch is divided into two until the leaves finally grow on the branches’ ends. It produces a lot of green leaves that are renewed every three or four years; they fall and other leaves grow in their place. The island of Socotra’s 34-million-year separation from mainland Arabia has given rise to a unique flora – 37% of its plant species are found nowhere else.
It grows in rocky grounds and on high locations, where it preserves water for many years; it is drought-tolerant and can adapt to arid conditions in which there is less water and soil. This resin is of great importance, as it contains an effective substance known as draco, which has multiple medical uses such as treating wounds, infections and burns; to stop blood clot ; treating stomach ulcerations etc. Wood of dragon blood tree is used for the manufacture of beehives, while leaves are used for the manufacture of ropes. Local people value it as food for livestock: feeding very small quantities of berries to cows and goats improves their health, though they cause sickness in excess.
- Lone Cypress
Lone Cypress has been called one of the most photographed trees in North America. The Lone Cypress Tree near Monterey is probably the most famous point along the 17-Mile Drive, a scenic road through Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach. The Monterey Cypress is a species of cypress that is endemic to the Central Coast of California. In the wild, these species are confined to two small populations, near Monterey and Carmel. Land, tree and ocean were the basis of this development, and therefore The Lone Cypress became the perfect symbol.
The tree is believed to be about 250 years old, and is its registered trademark since 1919. The Lone Cypress stands atop a granite outcropping above the ever-churning Pacific Ocean. Macrocarpa is a medium-sized evergreen tree, which often becomes irregular and flat-topped as a result of the strong winds that are typical of its native area. It grows to heights of up to 40m in perfect growing conditions, and its trunk diameter can reach 2.5m. The seed cones are globose to oblong, 20–40 mm long. It is also found in western Oregon, and New Zealand as an ornamental tree.
7.BOab Prison Tree
The Boab Prison Tree is a large hollow tree just south of Derby in Western Australia. The Boab Prison Tree, Derby is a 1,500-year-old, large hollow Adansonia gregorii tree 6 kilometres south of Derby. The tree is now a tourist attraction. It is protected under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972. This remarkable tree has a circumference of over 14 metres and has an oblong slit in the bark, through which the hollow centre is visible – this is common among older boab trees when the soft spongy trunk tissue dies off, causing the trunk to become hollow.
Evidence indicates that police on patrol from Wyndham in the 1890s noticed that holes in the upper branches indicated that the tree was hollow and so cut an opening into the tree to use it as a lockup for Aboriginal prisoners on their way to Wyndham for sentencing. It also states that it “has accommodated 30 prisoners at one time”. Anthropologist Herbert Basedow was one of the first Europeans to document the Derby Boab Tree. It is reputed to have been used in the 1890s as a lockup for Indigenous Australian prisoners on their way to Derby for sentencing. In recent years a fence was erected around the tree to protect it from vandalism.
8.Cotton Tree
The tree is widely planted in southeastern Asian countries and regions like such as in Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, southern China and Taiwan, etc. The tree grows to 240 ft (73 m) as confirmed by climbing and tape drop with reports of Kapoks up to 77 meters (252 feet). The trees produce several hundred 15 cm (6 in) pods containing seeds surrounded by a fluffy, yellowish fibre that is a mix of lignin and cellulose. According to legend, the Cotton Tree became an important symbol in 1792 when a group of former African American slaves, who had gained their freedom by fighting for the British during the American War of Independence, settled the site of modern Freetown. They landed on the shoreline and walked up to a giant tree just above the bay and held a thanksgiving service there to thank God for their deliverance to a free land.
Ceiba pentandra is a tropical tree of the order Malvales and the family Malvaceae, native to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, northern South America, and to West Africa. It is also known as the Java cotton, Java kapok, silk-cotton or samauma. It is widely planted in parks and on roadsides there because of its beautiful red flowers which bloom in March/April. The flowers are very attractive to local wildlife, with many birds like the Japanese white-eye, a type of fruit eating bird, which often draws a hole in an unopened Bombax ceiba flower bud. The flower-bud is eaten as a vegetable in India. At the peak of its flowering season, elderly people may often be seen gathering the fallen flowers from the ground to dry, which they later use to prepare tea or soup.
9.Arbol del Tule
Arbol del Tule, a Montezuma Cypress, is located in the town center of Santa Maria del Tule in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It is the widest tree in the world. It is so large that it was originally thought to be multiple trees, but DNA tests have proven that it is only one tree. It has the stoutest trunk of any tree in the world although the trunk is heavily buttressed, giving a higher diameter. It is short of about only 35.4 meters in height, stout about 11.62 meters in diameter, and old about 1,500 years.
Its gnarled bark that truly inspires the imagination. In its knots and crooks, visitors have found likenesses of human faces, lions, jaguars, elephants, and a veritable bestiary of other creatures. Residents celebrate the famous Tule Tree the second Monday of October. A belief of the Ayuuk (Mixe) is that the tree is the walking stick of one of their gods that took root and grew into the famous tree. The tree is on a well. In the past this well was partially diverted, which made the existence of the tree threatened because of a shortage of water. Later on, measures were taken to assure sufficient supply of water.
- Major Oak
The Major Oak is a huge oak tree in the heart of Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, England. According to local folklore, it was Robin Hood’s shelter where he and his band of outlaws slept. The famous tree is about 800 to a 1000 years old. It weighs an estimated 23 tons, has a girth of 33 feet (10 metres), a canopy of 92 feet (28 metres). It was voted “Britain’s favourite tree”. The Major Oak may be several trees that fused together as saplings, or the tree could have been pollarded.
In 1790, Major Hayman Rooke, a noted antiquarian, included the tree in his popular book about the ancient oaks of Sherwood. Nowadays, the Major Oak provides a home and shelter to hundreds of living things; beetles, bats, fungi, squirrels and spiders amongst much more. It’s been fenced off since the 1970’s, allowing our visitors to appreciate its magnificence whilst also giving it a little room to breathe and stay healthy.
