The Big Tree is a nearly 400-year-old bur oak ( Quercus macrocarpa ) tree near the Missouri River in Boone County, Missouri. It is tied for National Champion, representing the largest tree of its species in the United States. Standing alone in the floodplain of the Missouri River, and near the city of Columbia, Missouri, it is a well-known landmark and has inspired artists, folklorists, photographers, and nature lovers for hundreds of years. The tree stands 27 m (89 ft) high, has a crown 40 m (130 ft) wide, and a trunk 7.5 ft (2.3 m) in diameter. [1]
The land on which the tree grows is private, and has been farmed by the Williamson family for six generations, although it is publicly accessible by Bur Oak Road. The Katy Trail State Park, a popular rail trail, is just yards from the tree, making it a common side-trip for cyclists. The small village of McBaine is within sight of the tree, and the village of Huntsdale is nearby. It is part of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. The Big Tree was cloned by scientists at the University of Missouri and many offspring from both clones and acorns are growing in front yards, city parks, and schoolyards around Missouri and beyond.[ citation needed ]
According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Big Tree is somewhere between 350 and 400 years old, having sprouted sometime in the 1600s. The tree was already around 200 years old when the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed nearby. The size of the tree has made coring and accurate dating difficult. It has been the state champion Bur Oak since 1987. [2]
The tree has survived many droughts and floods, including the Great Flood of 1993, when water stood nearly 6.5 ft deep around its trunk. Lightning has struck the tree often, including in October 2020, when a strike lit a fire in the core, burning out a large space inside the tree. The fire was widely reported by the press and also attracted much community concern. [3] [4] The Boone County Fire Department arrived quickly and extinguished the blaze with great effort. [5] Irrespective of the fire, the tree had been in decline for several years, due to age, drought, and flooding. [6] [7]
Columbia is a city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is the county seat of Boone County and home to the University of Missouri. Founded in 1821, it is the principal city of the three-county Columbia metropolitan area. It is Missouri's fourth most populous with an estimated 128,555 residents in 2022.
Quercus kelloggii, the California black oak or Kellogg oak, is an oak in the red oak section native to western North America. Although genetically separated from them for more than 20 million years, its leaves are remarkably similar in appearance to several other members of the red oak section including the red oak and the black oak found in eastern and central North America.
Quercus alba, the white oak, is one of the preeminent hardwoods of eastern and central North America. It is a long-lived oak, native to eastern and central North America and found from Minnesota, Ontario, Quebec, and southern Maine south as far as northern Florida and eastern Texas. Specimens have been documented to be over 450 years old.
Quercus palustris, also called pin oak, swamp oak, or Spanish oak, is a tree in the red oak section of the genus Quercus. Pin oak is one of the most commonly used landscaping oaks in its native range due to its ease of transplant, relatively fast growth, and pollution tolerance.
Boone County is located in the U.S. state of Missouri. Centrally located in Mid-Missouri, its county seat is Columbia, Missouri's fourth-largest city and location of the University of Missouri. As of the 2020 census, the population was 183,610, making it the state's eighth-most populous county. The county was organized November 16, 1820, and named for the then recently deceased Daniel Boone, whose kin largely populated the Boonslick area, having arrived in the 1810s on the Boone's Lick Road. Boone County comprises the Columbia Metropolitan Area. The towns of Ashland and Centralia are the second and third most populous towns in the county.
Quercus robur, the pedunculate oak, is a species of flowering plant in the beech and oak family, Fagaceae. It is a large tree, native to most of Europe and western Asia, and is widely cultivated in other temperate regions. It grows on soils of near neutral acidity in the lowlands and is notable for its value to natural ecosystems, supporting a very wide diversity of herbivorous insects and other pests, predators and pathogens.
Quercus bicolor, the swamp white oak, is a North American species of medium-sized trees in the beech family. It is a common element of America's north central and northeastern mixed forests. It can survive in a variety of habitats. It forms hybrids with bur oak where they occur together in the wild.
Quercus garryana is an oak tree species of the Pacific Northwest, with a range stretching from southern California to southwestern British Columbia. It is commonly known as the Garry Oak, Oregon white oak or Oregon oak. It grows from sea level to an altitude of 690 feet in the northern part of its range, and from 980 to 5,900 ft in the south of the range in California. The eponymous Nicholas Garry was deputy governor of the Hudson's Bay Company.
The Katy Trail State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Missouri that contains the Katy Trail, the country's longest continuous recreational rail trail. It runs 240 miles (390 km), largely along the northern bank of the Missouri River, in the right-of-way of the former Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad. Open year-round from sunrise to sunset, it serves hikers, joggers, and cyclists. Its hard, flat surface is of "limestone pug".
Quercus virginiana, also known as the southern live oak, is an evergreen oak tree endemic to the Southeastern United States. Though many other species are loosely called live oak, the southern live oak is particularly iconic of the Old South. Many very large and old specimens of live oak can be found today in the Deep South region of the United States.
Quercus macrocarpa, the bur oak or burr oak, is a species of oak tree native to eastern North America. It is in the white oak section, Quercus sect. Quercus, and is also called mossycup oak, mossycup white oak, blue oak, or scrub oak. The acorns are the largest of any North American oak, and are important food for wildlife.
Big Basin Redwoods State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of California, located in Santa Cruz County, about 36 km (22 mi) northwest of Santa Cruz. The park contains almost all of the Waddell Creek watershed, which was formed by the seismic uplift of its rim, and the erosion of its center by the many streams in its bowl-shaped depression.
Quercus douglasii, known as blue oak, is a species of oak endemic to California, common in the Coast Ranges and the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. It is California's most drought-tolerant deciduous oak, and is a dominant species in the blue oak woodland ecosystem. It is occasionally known as mountain oak and iron oak.
Quercus falcata, also called southern red oak, spanish oak, bottomland red oak or three-lobed red oak is an oak. Native to the southeastern United States, it gets its name the "Spanish Oak" as these are the areas of early Spanish colonies, whilst "southern red oak" comes from both its range and leaf color during late summer and fall. The southern red oak is a deciduous angiosperm, so has leaves that die after each growing period and come back in the next period of growth.
Quercus lyrata, the overcup oak, is an oak in the white oak group. The common name, overcup oak, refers to its acorns that are mostly enclosed within the acorn cup. It is native to lowland wetlands in the eastern and south-central United States, in all the coastal states from New Jersey to Texas, inland as far as Oklahoma, Missouri, and Illinois. There are historical reports of it growing in Iowa, but the species appears to have been extirpated there. It is a slow-growing tree that often takes 25 to 30 years to mature. It has an estimated lifespan of 400 years.
Quercus chrysolepis, commonly termed canyon live oak, canyon oak, golden cup oak or maul oak, is a North American species of evergreen oak that is found in Mexico and in the western United States, notably in the California Coast Ranges. This tree is often found near creeks and drainage swales growing in moist cool microhabitats. Its leaves are a glossy dark green on the upper surface with prominent spines; a further identification arises from the leaves of canyon live oak being geometrically flat.
Quercus × warei is a hybrid oak tree in the genus Quercus. The tree is a hybrid of Quercus robur f. fastigiata and Quercus bicolor . The hybrid is named for the American dendrologist George Ware, former Research Director at the Morton Arboretum in Illinois.
The Boonslick, or Boone's Lick Country, is a cultural region of Missouri along the Missouri River that played an important role in the westward expansion of the United States and the development of Missouri's statehood in the early 19th century. The Boone's Lick Road, a route paralleling the north bank of the river between St. Charles and Franklin, Missouri, was the primary thoroughfare for settlers moving westward from St. Louis in the early 19th century. Its terminus in Franklin marked the beginning of the Santa Fe Trail, which eventually became a major conduit for Spanish trade in the Southwestern United States. Later it connected to the large emigrant trails, including the Oregon and California Trails, used by pioneers, gold-seekers and other early settlers of the West. The region takes its name from a salt spring or "lick" in western Howard County, used by Nathan and Daniel Morgan Boone, sons of famed frontiersman Daniel Boone.
Burr Oak is an extinct town in Lincoln County, in the U.S. state of Missouri.
Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area is a nature preserve and wetland in Boone County, Missouri. Located mainly in the Missouri River floodplain southwest of Columbia, Missouri and managed by the Missouri Department of Conservation, the wetlands are a refugee for migrating birds and home to several breeding pairs of bald eagles. The area is named after these eagles and the tall bluffs along the eastern edge of the Missouri River floodplain. Perche Creek flows through the refuge. McBaine, Missouri is located at the north entrance to the area. The Katy Trail State Park traverses the area.