Tree Thursday - Senator Bald Cypress

The State Champion Bald Cypress, known as the Senator, grew for 3,500 years until it was burned one night so that someone could "see better." 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/28/the-senator-burns-fire-sara-barnes-arrested_n_1308513.html#slide=617715

Unfortunately, if this is the first you are hearing of the Senator Cypress, you will never have the opportunity to see it live.  I have only seen it in photographs myself.  On the night of January 16, 2012, the ancient giant was set on fire by a 26 year-old Orlando-area woman that frequently visited the park where the tree was "to do drugs".  Not only was the woman charged with malicious burning of land, a third-degree felony, but police found drugs in her home while executing a search warrant.

The tree that sprouted some 3,400 years before there even was a Seminole County was officially named The Senator but was simply known as "The Big Tree" to most Central Floridians. The Senator was named after Moses Oscar Overstreet, a state senator from 1920 to 1925 who donated what is now Big Tree Park to the county.  Big Tree Park was dedicated in 1929 by President Calvin Coolidge, making it one of the area's oldest parks.  It was one of Central Florida's leading attractions before the arrival of the region's theme parks.  A billboard on U.S. Highway 17-92 boasted of the tree's age and pointed motorists toward Big Tree Road — now General Hutchinson Parkway. 

The tree was estimated to be 165 feet tall before a hurricane took off the top in 1925, according to research conducted by county historians.  The American Forestry Association bored a small hole in The Senator in 1946 for a core sample that gave the tree an estimated age of 3,500 years.  The park was spruced up and rededicated in 2005. At the time, a companion tree was located and verified to be about 2,000 years old.  The tree was named Lady Liberty.  That one is still there if you wish to visit.  Big Tree Park is currently closed but will reopen on March 2^nd.  The park is located on General Hutchinson Parkway between U.S. 17-92 and State Road 427 north of Longwood and serves as a Trailhead for the Cross Seminole Trail. 

The official statistics for the Senator in 1993 were:

Circumference – 425 inches

Height – 118 feet

Crown Spread – 57 feet.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-01-16/news/os-senator-cypress-tree-fire-20120116_1_big-tree-park-arson-general-hutchinson-parkway

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/28/the-senator-burns-fire-sara-barnes-arrested_n_1308513.html

For more information on Bald Cypress Trees, see my previous article.