Such speculation doesn’t have to be idle. In a Washington, D.C.,
office, the American Forests organization keeps the National
Register of Big Trees. The Big Tree program was begun in 1940 as
America faced impending war and its attendant need for
resources, including wood. The first giant to be earmarked and
saved from the threat of a saw was Maryland’s Wye Oak, an
estimated 450 years old and, up to its death, the champion white
oak. Since 1940, more than 800 Big Trees have been named. Almost
every state has at least one, with the most in Florida and then
California. Those states are home to some species found only
there. HOW BIG IS BIGGEST? Not all Big Trees are necessarily
big. Each is merely the biggest of its species. The smallest Big
Tree is in Texas, a Reverchon hawthorn in Dallas which “soars”
to 9 feet tall and around whose trunk you could wrap your hands.
You can probably guess which is the biggest Big Tree: the
General Sherman sequoia in California, its upper leaves, at 275
feet, tickling clouds, and