10 Greatest Trees in the World

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The Tree of Life

Myth, tradition, inspiration, culture, religion, and many other aspects of human life are written into the rings of history within a tree's trunk. In fact, trees would do just fine if humans ceased to exist—but humans would almost surely die without trees. They reduce carbon dioxide while producing oxygen, moderate ecosystems, prevent erosion, provide shelter, building materials, energy, and even nutrition.

Because of their nearly innumerable benefits, people throughout time have attibuted greater meaning to trees. A common motif that appears again and again in various cultures and religions is the Tree of Life. Depending on where you look, the Tree of Life offers the threshold between life and death (Egypt), grants you immortality once every 3,000 years (China), or supports and connects the underworld, the earth, and the stars (Mesoamerica).

The above pictured Tree of Life is found in the middle of a desert in Bahrain, miles from any other living organism or source of water. It is a 400-year-old mesquite tree, whose roots can sometimes grow to over 160 feet, making it resilient in arid climates. While some people like to think it is the tree of good and evil mentioned in the Bible, locals attibute other spiritual powers to it and have their own occult pracitces surrounding it.

Whatever the case may be, extraordinary trees like this cause legends to flourish and attact visitors from around the world to catch a glimpse of their leafy awesomeness. The following gallery will lift your roots up with amazing trees and their stories.

(Photo: David Steele/Getty)

The Bodhi Tree

Ever heard of the Buddha? Yeah, well this fig tree in Bodh Gaya, India, is believed to be the tree under which Siddhartha Gautama achieved enlightenment approximately 2,500 years ago. According to Buddhist texts, right after the Buddha achieved enlightenment, he gazed up at the tree in gratitude with unblinking eyes for an entire week. Talk about a staring contest.

The Bodhi Tree was seen as a sacred shrine even during the lifetime of the Buddha by King Asoka, who held a festival every year in its honor. However, his queen is what many people would call "the jealous type" and had it killed by mandu thorns. But the Bodhi tree had the last laugh when it regrew in the very same spot and had a magnificent temple built next to it. Even today, the tree is the most important of four Buddhist pilgrimage sites.

(Photo: Courtesy of Ken Wieand via Flickr)

Major Oak

Depending on your age, you may think of Robin Hood as a dastardly fox, a witty Cary Elwes, or a pouty Russell Crowe. But the locals of Edwinstone, in the heart of the Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, England, don't really care what your image of him is. Robin Hood has been an important folk figure to them since the medieval period, long before movies were invented.

Some records portray Robin Hood as a farmer while others identify him as a wealthy man whose lands were wrongfully taken from him, forcing him to become an outlaw. Whatever his origins, the Major Oak tree is fabled to be the shelter in which Robin Hood and his Merry Men slept after a long day's work of "stealing from the rich and giving to the poor."

(Photo: Courtesy of Philip Wallbank via Geograph)

Árbol del Tule

This Montezuma cypress is located in the Mexican state of Oaxaca and has the stoutest trunk of any tree in the world. One theory is that it's mulitple trees grown together. However, DNA testing has proven that it is indeed one tree.

In 2001 it was placed on the UNESCO tentative list of World Heritage Sites, and guess what? It is sometimes nicknamed the Tree of Life because of all the animal shapes that can be seen in its gnarled trunk.

(Photo: Alberto Inrocci / Getty)

The Basket Tree

When he was a young boy, Axel Erlandson moved from Sweden to California with his family. But it wasn't until he was 41 years old that Axel began to shape trees as a hobby. His designs became more and more complicated and eventually he opened a "Tree Circus."

To create this specific tree, "The Basket Tree," Axel planted six sycamore trees in a circle and grafted them together when they grew another foot. When children asked him how he made the trees grow like this, he would simply reply, "I talk to them."

(Photo: Courtesy of Martin Lewison via Flickr)

Baobab Trees

While it may look like Baobab trees are shaped into their odd forms by imaginative horticulturists, the only hand of manipulation here is evolution. These large trees can grow up to 50 feet tall and are the natural equivalent of water towers. The trees are native to arid regions such as mainland Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Madagascar, and Australia and have been used in dry seasons for their water supplies stored in hollows in the tree. The white powder in their seed pods can be utilized as food, and their leaves have medicinal purposes.

(Photo: Ken Massey / Getty)

The Cotton Tree

What possible connection could a tree in the capital city of Sierra Leone have to the American Revolutionary War? Well, just as the Amercans won independence from Great Britain, a group of African American slaves won their freedom by fighting for the British during the war.

Legend has it that the newly freed slaves landed on the shoreline, walked up to the giant tree, and circled around it, giving thanks for their deliverance to a free land. On March 11, 1792, they founded Freetown, and today it is the capital city of Sierra Leone. Currently, the Cotton Tree stands directly in front of Freetown's Supreme Court building.

(Photo: Courtesy of Christian Trede via Wikimedia Commons)

Anne Frank Tree

This horse-chestnut tree in Amsterdam provided a glimmer of beauty to Anne Frank at a time when she needed it most. In The Diary of a Young Girl, Frank's famed book about the time she and her family spent hiding from the Nazis during World War II, she describes this specific tree:

"Nearly every morning I go to the attic to blow the stuffy air out of my lungs, from my favorite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind. As long as this exists, I thought, and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies, while this lasts I cannot be unhappy."

To the dismay of many, this iconic tree was blown down by high winds during a storm on August 23, 2010. Fortunately, the tree missed the historic Annexe, the house in which she and her family stayed.

(Photo: Jerry Lampen / Reuters)

The Methuselah Tree

The Methuselah tree is like the estranged grandfather that no one in your family talks about. It is the oldest known living tree on the planet, but its location will not be revealed.

This is because an even older tree, nicknamed Prometheus, was accidentally cut down in 1964. At 4,843 years old, the bristlecone pine is worth protecting, even if it means anonymity.

(Photo: Rapsodia/Getty)

The Moon Trees

While the Methuselah tree represents the epic history of our planet, moon trees are an exciting symbol of the future. In 1971, Stuart Roosa took 500 tree seeds on the Apollo 14 mission around the moon. Upon return, these far-out seeds were germinated and grew alongside Earth-bound counterparts across the globe.

These moon trees are a picture-perfect metaphor for our own future. Hopefully, we will learn to value the very organisms that make Earth a living, breathing, and habitable planet in the middle of a seemingly desolate universe.