Once covered in glacial ice during the ice age, the soil in California’s Sierra Nevada is poor, and even the hardiest of plants struggle to survive. Fortunately, one of the world’s most common plants is well adapted to these conditions, and one tree has far outgrown all of its peers.
As fall begins in Malaga, Spain, the smell of roasted sweet chestnuts fills the pedestrian streets of the city center. In the mountains above the small town of Istan, the ‘Holy Chestnut’ has grown for a thousand years.
About 25 kilometers from the Indian city of Kadiri, a single tree has grown to be the size of a forest. Thimmamma Marrimanu is a banyan tree, and its enormous canopy was awarded the Guinness world record for ‘Largest Tree’ in 1989.
Alongside the neon lights and constant hum of Tokyo’s commuter trains, ancient temples and shrines provide a serene reminder of the past. Near the Zenpuku-ji Buddhist temple in the Azabu Ward, one ginkgo tree links to a time before time.
Apple trees have long been a part of human history, as one of the first cultivated trees, but one tree inspired one of the biggest scientific discoveries in centuries. The so called ‘gravity tree’ is located on the grounds of Woolsthorpe Manor, the birthplace of Sir Isaac Newton.
High in the mountains of Sierra de las Nieves natural park in the South of Spain, one Spanish fir tree (abies pinsapo) towers above its kin.
High on the slopes of the Gamalama volcano on the Indonesian island of Ternate lies a clove tree that led to the end of one of the most profitable monopolies in colonial history.
Amidst the destruction that Hurricane Harvey brought to coastal Texas, one giant oak tree stood tall. Very tall, in fact. ‘The Big Tree’ of Rockport is one of the largest live oak (quercus virginiana) trees in the United States, at nearly 14 meters (45 feet) tall.
At the east end of Madrid’s iconic Puerta del Sol there is a tribute to another famous symbol of the city – the Statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree.
Although not native to the island, oak trees have become the signature tree of Galveston. The trees have been through a lot of changes in their lifetimes, and are now halfway across the world being transformed into a living history museum.
The Treeographer 