Didn’t want to steal Paul’s thread on keyboards, which reminded me of the Bristlecone Pine Tree. It is my favorite.
Bristlecone Pines generally grow at elevations over 10,000’. They are the oldest living full grown trees on the planet, living up to 6,000 years. ( Recently, a type of spruce trees was determined to be older than that, but the spruces were more like small shrubs than full blown trees. ) They are the only known trees to have “dead and alive” parts existing together, intertwined.
I’ve had the good fortune to see several great Bristlecone Pine forrests. At Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada on the way to the summit of Wheeler Peak ( 13,063’ ). Around the summit of Telescope Peak ( 11,000’ plus ) on the west side of Death Valley in SE California. On the way to summit White Mountain Peak ( 14,236’ ) in the White Mountains on the east side of Owens Valley, north of Bishop, CA.
The thing that makes them my favorite is this - the more harsh the conditions in which the Bristlecone Pine grows, the tougher it is and the longer it lives. The higher, and colder, and windier it is, the healthier the tree is and the longer it will live. The lower, and warmer, and calmer the growing conditions, the weaker and more short-lived the tree will be.
Besides that, they are, to my taste, absolutely beautiful.
Having lived in Ely Nv not far from Great Basin National Park, I agree that the Bristlecone Pine is a beautiful tree. For me the most beautiful tree is the Dogwood. I love the form of the tree in the winter when the leaves are gone the look when it blossoms out in the spring, and then the leaves of summer. it is a slow growing tree and never gets very big then it dies young.
I have several favorites.
I like blooming Dogwoods in the Ozarks in the spring.
I like Maples and Aspens for the beautiful colors in the fall.
I like Oaks, especially White Oaks for their sturdiness and long lives…
I like any big tree that forms a near perfectly round shape when leafed out.
The prettiest Maple tree in my neighborhood belongs to the woman next door. Its dying, it has “bores” she said. She’s going to have it cut down. We’re all very sad about it.
I tend towards the lacy looking dogwoods and red buds. Red buds are my favorite … even after they lose their flowers, the leaves that come out are perfectly shaped like hearts.
My favorites are Junipers… They’re tough and durable. I’ve seen them growing right out of rock. The berries have a pungent smell, much like Gin… They taste awful, but I’ve seen Coyotes and Antelope eat them, and I’ve seen Bear scat that looked like Juniper berry jelly. They’re beautiful trees, and wood cut from them has beautiful red, green, and blue streaks in the grain. It smells much like Cedar, and bugs won’t hardly touch it. I’ve seen Juniper posts 75 years old with little or no rot. It grows all over the Modoc country of my youth…Reminds me of home and younger days…ModocDan
Gin is made with juniper berries, which taste bad because they are poisonous to people (although the distillation process does something so you can drink the Gin without anything worse than a hangover). Personally I like Ironwood. They are relatively pretty, but they are EXTREMELY strong, VEERY slow growing, and almost impossible to find now in New England. These trees have been known to dull chainsaws and axes before you can manage to cut them down… Usually there is enough damage to kill them, but they destroy your equipment in the process.
I have several favorite trees in mind, but I like any type of tree anyway. I especially like dogwoods and poplars (Tulip Poplar being the TN state tree). Two others that I really favor are California Redwoods and Live Oaks. There is just something fantastic about them both.
I enjoy the Live Oaks because of the size of the canopy and the branches. I especially like the way Spanish Moss grows on them in the southeastern states.
John- You mentioned the harsh living conditions of the Bristlecone Pine Tree and how it makes them live so long. Bonsai trees are the same way. They are trained and subjected to other-than-normal conditions to shape them and they can live to be extremely old. In Asia there are some very old specimens that have been passed down through generation after generation. Pretty much any type of tree can be made into a bonsai and live a lot longer than their wild counterparts. There are other shrubs and vines that can be made to live this way also and live just as long like wisteria.
John,
One of my favorite pine trees is at the other end of Paulina Lake (central Oregon), by the obsidian flows. That tree looks like a Japanese Bonsai, very gnarly.
Doug
If I had to pick “A” tree, it would be the one on the summit between Laramie and Cheyenne growing out of a rock and I-80 splits and goes around it. Even has a fence and stuff around it for people to stop and observe. A monument to NEVER SAY CAN’T!!!
I’ve viewed this post with a certain sense of frustration. Everyone has his/her own favorite, and I’ve examined myself to come up with one, and haven’t been able to isolate it. All your comments about favorite trees, I agree and identify with. Maybe that’s what makes it difficicult. It’s easy to place human attributes on trees. Tenacity, beauty, toughness, endurance, etc. Versitility is an attribute in some. You can breed and graft for the qualities you want, something like shaping young minds. They feed us, shade us, add oxygen to the air, and beauty to the landscape. I guess I’m going the Will Rogers route. I’ve never met a tree I didn’t like.
"Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God, can make a tree.
I wish I had a buck for every time I passed “that” tree. It’s not a whole bunch to look at but it’s history is long and famous. Used to be watered by conductors from passing trains ( there were tracks there once upon…).
When I passed it, I knew I was just a few miles from school .UW, in Laramie.
Thanks for the memory.
Mark
PS: I also wish I had a pic to show. Probably available via Google .
Technically speaking, Tennessee’s state tree isn’t a true poplar such as aspens, cottonwoods, and other poplars. It is a nearly unique sort of tree that has only 2 species in its genus. The other one is native to SE China. That said, I still am quite fond of them. I suppose that my two favorite tree species are the eastern redcedar (actually a juniper) and redbud.
There was a Sitka spruce tree just behind the store in Sandspit in the Queen Charlotte islands. It was in the local vernacular a 17 1/2 foot tree. That is 17 1/2 feet across the butt. Only eagles knew the height of it because the top was hidden from our sight by its immense branches The logging company that had the tree license and thus they said, the right to do so planned to cut it down. They were aware that once down they couldn’t pick it up and use it. So it would be left to rot. You see there were about 15 other trees surrounding and protecting it from the wind. These other trees they could use. Although they had thousands of acres of trees they refused to leave the protective barrier for the big one. So down it came in 1971. I suppose that it is progress that today they would not be able to do such a horrible thing as to cut down the largest Sitka spruce in the world at that time. They said it was for “Safety reasons” because without its protection it was now open to the wind. We all knew it would have come down in the next big southeaster.
I still mourn the death of that wonderful tree.
This reminds me of one of the stories about Bristlecone Pines. About fifty years ago, some Nevada folks thought one of their trees was over 6,000 years old. So they cut it down to find out. They were right - and they were WRONG.
