Everything is Bigger
The statement, “Everything is bigger in Texas” is not altogether wrong. Texas is a big land full of big people, big ideas and big trees. Some of the trees featured here are not very large, but sometimes their rarity lends them stature or their fruit is jumbo-sized.
The following trees have made a big impression on Texas, some still standing hundreds of years later.
Big Tree Ranch Bald Cypress
Big. Massive. Towering. These are the words often used to describe the incredibly large bald cypress growing at the aptly named Big Tree Ranch in Concan. A former state champion, its size has long been revered in this part of the Hill Country.
The Big Tree Ranch Baldcypress was officially named the largest of its kind in June of 1965. As a tree of swamps and flooded waterways, it continued to do very well in the floodplain of the Frio River.
Naturally, with size comes the question of age, and a core sample taken in 2009 gave the cypress a conservative age estimate of more than 600 years. But the tree’s true age and size may remain elusive—a closer look at the Big Tree Ranch Baldcypress reveals it has no buttressed base. Over the years, the Rio Frio River has gradually covered the base of the tree with sand, silt and rock.
Texas A&M Forest Service foresters estimate that any formal measurements are likely being done 10–15 feet above the original base of the tree.
For more information on the Big Tree Ranch Bald Cypress, click here.
/BigTreeRanchBaldcypress2.jpg "Big Tree Ranch baldcypress")
Rio Grande Cottonwood
The Rio Grande Cottonwood, the pride and joy of Fort Davis, was lost in 2011. It fell victim to the Rockhouse Fire—one in a long list of destructive wildfires that raged in Texas that year. The blaze ignited near Marfa on April 9, 2011, and was finally controlled on May 15, 2011.
Cottonwoods have persevered in Texas for centuries. In the Davis Mountains State Park, near Fort Davis, aboriginal drawings were found on the trunks of cottonwood trees along Limpia Creek. The tree’s tough root wood was used by Native Americans to start fires, and early settlers used the logs for building stockades.
This riparian tree species is now often found only in fragmented creek habitats; spotting one that soars over 100 feet is becoming less common. Though large cottonwoods were once readily seen on the grounds of old Fort Davis, a frontier military post and along Limpia Creek, the size of the Rio Grande Cottonwood put it in a class all its own.
For more information on the well-known Rio Grande Cottonwood click here.
Jumbo Hollis Pecan
Although the Jumbo Hollis Pecan tree is not the largest in the world, nor in Texas, it has the distinction of once having yielded the largest pecan nuts in the world.
Robert L. Ripley cited Jumbo Hollis in his “Believe It or Not” column as requiring the fewest nuts to weigh a pound. When other native pecans averaged 70-80 nuts per pound, Jumbo’s averaged 33. The name Jumbo Hollis is derived from the tree’s unusually large fruit and from Thomas I. Hollis, the first recorded owner of the tree.
Hollis was an early settler and storekeeper in the Bend community, near San Saba. At the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Jumbo Hollis’ pecans won a bronze medal for being the largest displayed. In the early 1900’s much of its wood was sent throughout the South to be budded, or grafted, to other pecan trees.
The tree’s record year was 1919, when it produced 1,015 pounds of nuts. So popular were the fruits of this tree that buyers then paid as much as a dollar a pound for them. Click here to learn more about the Jumbo Hollis Pecan.
Columbus Live Oak
This gnarled Columbus Live Oak warrants a lot of attention. Its behemoth size and central location on a main street in Columbus means it can’t help but get noticed.
The Texas Big Tree Registry has long promoted the fact that big trees are an integral part of Texas heritage. The city of Columbus is a true embodiment of that belief—its pride in the Columbus Live Oak is as long-lived as the town itself. The tree is estimated to be over five hundred years old and continues to generate interest from both big tree enthusiasts and history buffs.
Situated near the Colorado River, this live oak was at the forefront of Texas frontier history. The area was first settled by members of Stephen F. Austin’s “Old Three Hundred” in 1821 on the site of Montezuma’s Indian village. Statesman and soldier Sam Houston reportedly camped on the river near Columbus, then known as Beason’s Crossing.
Yet another interesting feature of this well-loved tree is its prominent structural support—it has three substantial steel poles helping to bear the weight of its larger branches. Regardless of size, Columbus proudly promotes its live oak tree community. The town motto is “City of Live Oaks and Live Folks.”
Read more about the Columbus Live Oak here.
Cabinet Oak
The focal piece of the LBJ Ranch is the LBJ Ranch House, the home of President Johnson and a center of political activity for more than 20 years. In front of it, stood the Cabinet Oak. Leaders from around the world visited the Johnsons here, and during the Johnson administration, it became known as the Texas White House. President Johnson was the first President to create a functioning White House away from Washington.
In 1972 the Johnsons donated the Texas White House to the National Park Service and the American people. Lyndon Johnson liked to have his staff meetings under the stately live oak in the front yard of the ranch house and discuss the issues of the day ranging from the Vietnam War and Civil Rights to new grasses for the ranch.
Mrs. Johnson recalls: "It was always Lyndon's favorite time, particularly around sunset, from the earliest spring until cold weather drove us in. And we have lots of interesting pictures in this front yard."
The Cabinet Oak is in front of the Texas White House at the LBJ Historic Park near Stonewall. Click here to read more about the Cabinet Oak.
Rusk County Loblolly Pine
The ancient Rusk County Loblolly Pine of East Texas is living proof that things do get better with age.
Only a handful of venerable giants survived into 1992 when Fred Spivey purchased the land the tree stood, but the pine grew on; he acquired it knowing he was “making an investment in saving a part of nature’s history.” The champion tree’s identification as the largest of its kind in the Texas Big Tree Registry also helps ensure its protection and continued longevity.
When Spivey purchased his property, the majestic loblolly pine stood as the lone survivor—the others were previously removed to sawmills or pulp mills. The intense harvesting provided little protection, so Spivey planted additional timber around the tree. Surrounded now by a younger loblolly pine plantation— like a general flanked by his troops —the evergreen giant takes on almost mythical proportions.
When it was last measured, the Texas Champion Loblolly Pine was 130 feet tall with a 165-inch circumference and an average crown spread of 49 feet — giving it an impressive Big Tree Index score of 307 points. Learn more about the Rusk County Loblolly Pine here.
Runyon’s Esenbeckia
In the spring of 1929, Runyon received a herbarium specimen of an unknown tree that had been collected from the banks of the Resaca Del Rancho Viejo, near Brownsville.
After making collections of his own from the small grove, Runyon sent a sample to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where botanist Conrad Morton formally described it as a new species of Esenbeckia, a genus of mostly rainforest trees in the citrus family from the Yucatan area of Mexico. Morton named it Esenbeckia runyonii.
Broader’s search in Texas ultimately located only four small populations of this species, commonly called limoncillo or Runyon’s esenbeckia, and each was subsequently lost to agricultural conversions, perhaps eliminating this species from the United States. Runyon used some of his personal collection to germinate seeds and plant one of the trees at his Brownsville home.
That tree stands to this day and once was believed to be the last of its species in the United States. Although the species has since been discovered in a few other places in Texas—a grove of fifteen trees are now protected as part of the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge system—it remains exceedingly rare, perhaps the rarest tree in the United States.
Learn more about the Runyon’s Esenceckia here.