Talkkok

Have you heard or seen the world’s biggest and oldest tree, which is about 2000 years old?

This is the amazing tree!

The Trunks

The circumference is ~54 meters---- the largest girth of any tree on the planet.

The signboard

The name of this tree is El Árbol del Tule (Spanish for “the Tule Tree”),which is located in Tule in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

It is a Montezuma Cypress (Taxodium mucronatum).It has the stoutest trunk of any tree in the world. In 2001 it was placed on a UNESCO tentative list of World Heritage Sites.

Dimensions and age

Its trunk had a circumference of 36.2 m (119 ft), equating to a diameter of 11.62 m (38.1 ft).

The height is difficult to measure due to the very broad crown; the 2005 measurement, made by laser, is 35.4 m (116 ft). According to the signboard above, it has a total volume of 816.829 m³ and a weight of 636.107 t (701.188 short tons); these figures are however not independently verified, and given the same signboard’s claim of a girth of 58 m (190 ft), must be treated with suspicion.

It is so large that it was originally thought to be multiple trees, but DNA tests have proven that it is only one tree.

The age is unknown, with estimates ranging between 1,200 and 3,000 years, and even one claim of 6,000 years; the best scientific estimate based on growth rates is 1,433-1,600 years.

Local Zapotec legend holds that it was planted about 1,400 years ago by Pechocha, a priest of Ehecatl, the Aztec wind god, in broad agreement with the scientific estimate; its location on a sacred site (later taken over by the Roman Catholic Church) would also support this.

The tree is occasionally nicknamed the “Tree of Life” from all the images of animals that are reputedly visible in the tree’s gnarled trunk. As part of an official project local schoolchildren give tourists a tour of the tree and show all manners of creatures that the trunk features, including jaguars and elephants.

It’s amazing, isn’t it? More than a thousand year of living in this miserable world…….it must be suffering!!!