Mother of the Forest

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Mother of the Forest (668 BC – AD 1852) was a Californian tree.^[1] The tree spent most of its life in Calaveras County, California in the aptly named Calaveras Grove of Big Trees. Stretching 321 feet into the air with a girth of 90 feet at ground level, it was the largest of 92 giant sequoias growing in the valley in 1852 when George Gale discovered the massive tree, in 1854 the bark was stripped from the trunk.^[1] Gale named the massive tree "the Mother of the Forest" before he sent five men to fall it. The five men spent twenty-four days sawing through the massive tree until on the twenty-fourth day they finally sawed right through it.^{[citation needed]} The tree was so massive that it didn't fall over until a midnight gust blew Mother of the Forest on its side.^{[citation needed]} Gale sent samples of the tree to foresters in the east where it was discovered to be 2,520 years old.^{[citation needed]}

The massive tree had thick bark, two feet thick in some spots, which Gale had stripped. Gale toured with the bark, showing it off to urban crowds. The crowd's reaction was twofold; some of the people believed the bark to be a fraud, reasoning that no tree could grow bark as thick and long as that which Gale possessed. Others felt outrage that someone would fell such an old tree.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] See also

• List of sequoia groves
• List of California state parks

[edit] References

• Hutchings, J.M. In the Heart of the Sierras: The Yo Semite Valley, Both Historical and Descriptive and Scenes by the Way : Big Tree Groves : the High Sierra, with Its Magnificent Scenery, Ancient and Modern Glaciers, and Other Objects of Interest. Yo Semite Valley [etc.]: Old Cabin [etc.], 1886.

• Palmquist, Peter E., and Thomas R. Kailbourn. Pioneer Photographers of the Far West: A Biographical Dictionary, 1840-1865. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2000.