Florida has two elected U.S. senators, and one giant tree that bears the same name. The demise of “The Senator” came today, Jan. 16, two years ago. A fire started by a woman doing drugs within its hollow walls burnt down what had been the world’s biggest and oldest pond cypress tree, located in Big Tree Park in Longwood.
The Senator had once stood at 165 feet tall, and has a trunk diameter of nearly 18 feet.ย In 1993, it had been estimated to be 3,400 to 3,600 years old, making it the 5th oldest tree in the world.ย With an estimated volume of 5,100 cubic feet in 2006, The Senator was the largest tree of any species east of the Mississippi River.
Sadly, that made The Senator an excellent fuel source for Sara Barnes’ fire on the evening of Jan. 16, 2012. Using a flame for light as she and a friend crawled into the big tree to smoke meth, a fire broke out, burning the tree like a chimney from the inside out. For days.
A 20-foot section of the bald cypress fell from the top before the tree collapsed. Barnes documented the onset of the fire with photos on her cell phone, and shared the photos with friends.
The Senator was named for a state senator — Moses Overstreet — who donated the tree and surrounding land to create Big Tree Park in Seminole County in 1927. A commemorative plaque was placed on the tree by Calvin Coolidge in 1929, but it was stolen by vandals in 1945.
Barnes’ reaction: “I can’t believe I burned down a tree older than Jesus.”
Indeed, far older. The Senator took root in the earth around the time when Egypt conquered Nubia — about 1490 BC — and when the Phoenicians developed an alphabet.ย The Senator stood when the Greeks destroyed Troy, when King David ruled, and when the Great Wall of China was built. ย
Today, thanks to the foresight of some University of Florida scientists who cloned and grafted The Senator 15 years before the fire,ย its offspring dubbed “The Phoenix” now grows in a neighboring plot.
