Can These Extraordinary Trees Be 1000 Years Old?

By Jim Lancaster

Question - What are the largest living things in Arkansas?  Another question - What are the oldest living things in the State of Arkansas?  Perhaps the answers to both questions are a few Bald Cypress trees scattered through the Arkansas wetlands and sloughs that have been spared by loggers and have withstood the perils of nature for hundreds of years.  Two of these giant bald cypress trees are located in Saline River bottoms of Grant County near the community of Grapevine.
 
Shelby Taylor, a well-known timberman who lives in Sheridan, has an enthusiasm for finding unusual trees and things of nature.  Taylor recently logged an oak tree that was nearly seven feet in diameter and said it was the largest tree he had logged in his 40 years of forestry.  Then during last year's deer season Taylor and Pete Lybrand, who are members of the Grapevine Hunting Club which is located near the community of Grapevine in Grant County, took some fellow hunters and a newspaper writer/photographer to see a couple of huge cypress trees that they had seen in Saline River bottom near Grapevine.  It now appears that one of these trees may be the largest tree in the state and one of oldest trees in Arkansas too.
 
Photographing and measuring these historic trees was only possible in a very dry period because both of the extraordinary trees are in the middle of sloughs that seldom ever completely dry up.  And according to Taylor, he had never seen the woods and wetlands as dry as they were in the 2005 and 2006.

 "The first tree that we looked at is in a slough just a short distance from Saline River and it measured 39 feet and 9 inches in circumference at chest high," said Taylor of the giant cypress.  "That means that it is about 13 feet in diameter at that point, but cypress trees spread out at the base and about 20 feet up the trunk, it is probably only half of that diameter. 

The second tree is located in a remote area in what is called the Otter Pond Slough, also near Saline River.  It is difficult to find and access because of a dense mass of vines and brush in that area and it is surrounded by water. Of this rare tree Lybrand said, "This tree is larger than the first one and it has a larger hole in the swollen base.  This slough still has a lot of water around it even though many sloughs are dry right now - the water and vines around this tree also make it difficult to measure."

"We put our boots on and went back to measure the second tree two days later," remarked Shelby Taylor.  "It measured 53 feet in circumference and 16 feet and 9 inches in diameter - and I estimate that both of these cypress trees are about 120 feet tall." (This means that it is larger than the Arkansas state record of 43 feet in circumference for a bald cypress located in the White River Wildlife Refuge near Clarendon and registered with the Arkansas Forestry Commission)

The first impressions of the extraordinary trees are breathtaking - and perhaps at the "wow" moment of first site there is a realization that one may be viewing the largest and oldest living things that they have seen in a lifetime.  Their size may reminds  spectators of the giant redwoods of California that are so large that postcard pictures show one huge redwood tree with a hole cut in it with a car driving through the hole.  And research shows that the huge redwoods of the northwest and the cypress trees of the southern wetlands are of the same tree family - making them cousins, if trees can be compared to people.

Both of the giant cypress trees are hollow at the base and both have natural access holes that look like cave entrances.  Both access holes are large enough for a person to easily enter and disappear.  The deer hunters that accompanied Taylor and Lybrand were a little reluctant to enter the crevasse for fear of what might be inside.  "There might be a bear or a bobcat in there," exclaimed one of the group. "Or an alligator!" another hunter replied.  But after a cautious entry, the hunter announced to the others that there were no critters and the open space inside was remarkably clean.

Both of the mammoth trees are surrounded with hundreds of "cypress knees" which are common to cypress trees in wetlands. The "knees" extend from the root system to well above the average water levels; the height of them varies from 1 foot to 6 feet.  The functions of the knees have been an issue of speculation for scientists. Some experts believe they anchor the tree, while others think they are a means of respiration for the tree - perhaps they do both.  Tree scientists think that the knees and root systems of the cypress trees are so massive that they can withstand the winds of a tornado or hurricane where other trees would be uprooted.
The tree scientists have also studied the swollen bases of cypress and water tupelo trees and note that the enlarged lower trunk develops when they grow in flooded conditions.  The height of the swollen base is a response to maximum levels of flooding, with the greatest swelling occurring where there is a continual wetting and soaking of the tree trunk. Perhaps this explains why these two trees that are in the middle of sloughs grew so much larger than some other cypress trees.
 Experts agree that bald cypress trees may live more than 1,000 years, and the average life is 400 - 600 years in virgin stands.  However, the valuable wood of the cypress makes them likely to be logged before reaching the average age.  Where logging equipment can reach them most cypress trees of Arkansas and other states have been logged during the past two centuries.
"I believe these two trees are close to 1000 years old, maybe more," Shelby Taylor answered when asked about the estimated age.  "I think they survived because they are located in the middle of the sloughs where loggers of the past could not get to them except in a boat."

Photos of these trees were sent to University of Arkansas Professor David W.Stahle, with the Tree-Ring Laboratory of the Dept. of Geosciences. "We have documented by a process called dendrochronology that some of the Arkansas cypress trees are over 800 years old - but due to heart rot, for some that we think are over 1000 years old, the age cannot be exactly measured," said Professor Stahle.

Taylor brought along a core-drilling tool that extracts a small, dowel-shaped piece of a tree so that the growth rings can be counted.  "These rings are so close together that they are nearly impossible to count - that means that in the last 50 years the growth has slowed to point that it takes 40-50 years to grow one inch in diameter," he remarked as he displayed the core that was drilled from the big tree. 
The age of these trees can best be realized when put in the context of historical events.  If they are even close to Taylor's estimate, that means that they were there when Columbus discovered America in 1492, or that they were sizable trees in 1803 when President Thomas Jefferson completed the Louisiana Purchase from France that annexed this area to the United States.  And these trees were there in the middle of these sloughs when this area was inhabited by the Quapaw Indians that likely hunted beaver and black bears along the banks of the same sloughs.  And, it is not out of reason that they were saplings when the Great Christian Crusades of the so-called Middle Ages happened in Europe.

"There is little doubt that these old-growth cypress trees are the oldest living things in Arkansas," answered Michael Warner, Field Ecologist with the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, when asked if he knew of any living thing in Arkansas is older.
Bald cypress trees get their "bald" designation from the fact that they are deciduous, which means that they lose their leaves every fall.  This is unusual for trees that are conifers (evergreens).  As summer comes to an end the cypress needles (leaves) turn golden brown and then red before they begin to fall.  The fruit of the bald cypress are round cones that are about one inch in diameter - when mature, the cones with resin-coated seeds drop and with continuous water saturation of one to three months, the seeds germinate.

The bark of a bald cypress is thin and scaly with a color of gray-brown that turns to gray in older trees.  The wood of the tree has been called "The Wood Eternal" because of its exceptional durability in soil or water, or when exposed to weather.  In frontier America the cypress wood was in great demand for water tanks, silos, boats, shingles, greenhouse frames and coffins.  Now it is used for decks, fences, window boxes and paneling.

The pale brown or reddish wood is straight-grained and easily worked.   The cypress tree is remarkably free from insect pests, but is subject to a heart-rot fungus that fills the wood with unique holes.  Such logs produce the "pecky" cypress that is in so much demand for interior and exterior paneling frequently seen in dens and unusual houses.

Harlan Brown has a cypress sawmill south of Sheridan that specializes in producing cypress lumber and logs for buildings.  "We just finished supplying about 200,000 feet of cypress lumber for building a new lodge at Mt. Magazine State Park," said Brown of his business that is called Brown Millwork.   "We get most of our cypress logs from eastern Arkansas, but we get some from Louisiana and Mississippi too."

The historical significance of the cypress tree can be traced to ancient Egypt and in the Holy Bible.  There several references in the Old Testament to cypress wood.

Hopefully, these two extraordinary trees in Grant County and many others like them in Arkansas can stand for hundreds of more years and provide inspiration and awe to historians and even deer hunters of the future.

And a warning!  Before anyone tries to visit these trees, Shelby Taylor informs that they are in remote areas of private land that are covered by a hunting lease and the access roads of that area are gated and locked.