A Logger’s Tape Said “Leave Tree” (9 Photos)

Already Old When We Arrived

Each of these trees was already growing long before the trail, the fence and the parking lot that now lead to it. Most were old before the countries around them existed. All nine are alive, and you can still go and see every one of them.

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🌲 General Sherman Tree — Giant Sequoia in Sequoia National Park, California, USA 🇺🇸

The two people at the fence look tiny at its base. The General Sherman Tree stands in the Giant Forest, and the National Park Service’s most recent estimate puts it at about 2,200 years old. It is about a half-mile walk from the main parking lot.

💡 Size Fact: There are taller trees and wider trees, says the park service, but no tree on Earth has more wood in its trunk.

📷 Photo: “General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park – June 2022” by Marty Aligata / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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🌳 The Big Tree — Coastal Live Oak at Goose Island State Park, Texas, USA 🇺🇸

Low, crooked limbs spread wide over the grass at Goose Island State Park. Its exact age is unknown, but Texas Parks and Wildlife says it is centuries old, and arborists think it may have been growing for as long as 800 years.

💡 Size Fact: The trunk is 35 feet around and the crown spreads 89 feet. It was the Texas State Champion coastal live oak from 1966 until the San Bernard Oak took the title in 2003.

📷 Photo: “Big Tree Texas 2024” by Larry D. Moore / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

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🌲 Ankerwycke Yew — Yew Near Wraysbury, England, UK 🇬🇧

The trunk has split and folded over itself so many times it looks poured rather than grown. The National Trust says the Ankerwycke Yew may have been around for as long as 2,500 years, which makes it the oldest tree in the Trust’s care. It stands in open countryside on the bank of the Thames, across the river from Runnymede.

💡 Legend Fact: Some believe Magna Carta was sealed under this tree, and that Henry VIII courted Anne Boleyn here. No one knows the exact spot where Magna Carta was sealed, and the Anne Boleyn tale has no primary evidence: it first shows up in a poem from 1807.

📷 Photo: “Ankerwycke-Yew-east-view” by Rcalhoun / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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🌲 Big Lonely Doug — Douglas Fir Near Port Renfrew, British Columbia, Canada 🇨🇦

One tall tree with nothing its size left around it. The forest around this Douglas fir in the Gordon River Valley near Port Renfrew was clear-cut in 2012, but a logger had tied flagging tape around it that read “Leave Tree,” Outside reports. It is estimated to be 1,000 years old.

💡 Protection Fact: In 2019 the province put it on a list of 54 of its largest and oldest trees to be protected, with a one-hectare buffer around it.

📷 Photo: “BIG LONELY DOUG” by JLRPHOTO / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

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🌳 Bowthorpe Oak — English Oak Near Bourne, Lincolnshire, England, UK 🇬🇧

From a distance it is just a big round oak on a farm near Bourne. Up close, the trunk is hollow and 13.3 meters around, thought to be the widest of any living English oak in the UK. Lincolnshire’s heritage record says it is believed to be over a thousand years old.

💡 Dinner Fact: In 1768, George Pauncefort put benches inside the hollow trunk to use it as a dining area. Chains now help hold the old trunk together.

📷 Photo: “Bowthorpe Oak Tree” by Hypercolius / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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🌳 Jōmon Sugi — Japanese Cedar on Yakushima, Japan 🇯🇵

A knotted, hollow giant deep in the mountain forest of Yakushima. Because the trunk is hollow, it can’t be dated exactly: estimates run from 2,000 to 7,200 years. It is 25.3 meters tall and 16.4 meters around.

💡 Discovery Fact: The tree was only found in 1968. Today visitors see it from an observation deck built to keep people from getting too close, Japan’s transport and tourism ministry says.

📷 Photo and cover crop: “Jomon Sugi 07” by Σ64 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

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🌳 Tāne Mahuta — Kauri in Waipoua Forest, New Zealand 🇳🇿

A pale column that keeps going straight up until the branches finally start. The name means “Lord of the Forest,” and the Department of Conservation thinks the tree is between 1,250 and 2,500 years old. It stands a five-minute walk from the road through Waipoua Forest.

💡 Size Fact: The trunk measures 13.77 meters around and the tree is 51.2 meters tall, according to DOC. Visitors clean their shoes at a wash station first to keep kauri dieback out.

📷 Photo: “Tane Mahuta, 2016-01-22” by Szilas / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

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🌳 Angel Oak — Live Oak on Johns Island, South Carolina, USA 🇺🇸

Limbs as thick as trunks twist out in every direction, hung with moss and ferns. The City of Charleston, which owns Angel Oak Park, estimates the tree at 300 to 400 years old. It is 65 feet high, shades 17,000 square feet and gets about 400,000 visitors a year.

💡 Landmark Fact: The tree was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 21, 2026, partly as a cultural and spiritual symbol among the Gullah people.

📷 Photo and cover crop: “Angel Oak in Charleston South Carolina” by Agupta96 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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🌲 Old Tjikko — Norway Spruce in Fulufjället National Park, Sweden 🇸🇪

It doesn’t look like much: one skinny spruce on a bare mountain in Fulufjället National Park. The trunk you see is young. The root system underneath has been dated to 9,550 years, making it one of the world’s oldest known tree clones.

💡 Name Fact: The researchers named the tree after their dog, Tjikko. In 2023, heavy snow broke about a meter off the top, Science Norway reported. The part that is thousands of years old is the root system, not the top, and a mountain guide said the tree would survive.

📷 Photo: “Old-Tjikko-2011-07-19-001” by Karl Brodowsky / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)