Say Hello To General Sherman: The Biggest Tree The World Has Ever Seen, With An Estimated Age Of 2,200-Years-Old
The state of California contains ancient forests where monumental guardians of time and history stand.
Towering above their surroundings, the giant sequoias beckon visitors to tilt their heads up and strain their necks in an attempt to see where their branches meet the sky.
Among them, one specimen reigns supreme, holding the title of the largest living tree on Earth. Behold General Sherman, the biggest tree the world has ever seen.
The General Sherman tree is located in California’s Sequoia National Park, and it contains more volume than any other tree in existence.
It reaches 275 feet in height, which is equivalent to the length of three blue whales put together. It weighs over 2,000 tons, and its base measures 36 feet in diameter.
Shockingly, the arboreal behemoth is not done growing! Every year, it produces enough wood to make another 60-foot-tall tree.
Additionally, the estimated age of General Sherman is around 2,200-years-old. That means the tremendous tree started growing during the early years of the Roman Empire.
It’s definitely the type of tree that attracts a crowd. California is the one place left where you can see these trees in the wild.
During the ice age, these trees could be found across North America and Europe. But as the glaciers melted, the sequoias disappeared along with them.
JFL Photography – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
Now, they only grow in the western region of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, which serves as their primary water source. As you can imagine, trees of this size need a lot of water to survive.
According to the National Park Service, the Sherman tree was once given the name of Karl Marx by a utopian socialist community called the Kaweah Colony, which was founded in 1886.
The group was short-lived, though, and disbanded in 1892. They supported themselves by logging and lived in the area before it was established as a park by the U.S. government in 1890.
The tree got its current name from James Wolverton, a Civil War veteran who fought on the Union Army’s side.
He became a rancher in northern California, and when he stumbled upon the massive tree, he chose to name it after the great general he had fought under, General William Tecumseh Sherman.
Thanks to their ultra-thick bark, giant sequoias are incredibly resilient. Their bark can be as thick as two feet, offering excellent protection against fire, which has become increasingly critical due to the changing climate.
For instance, the Washington tree is still standing after it was struck by lightning in 2003 and was ravaged by a winter storm that tore off its limbs in 2005.
Before suffering damage, it used to be regarded as the world’s second-largest tree, only 20 feet shorter than the Sherman. Now, it’s still standing strong at 115 feet tall.
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