Lady Liberty is a 2000-year-old bald cypress tree located in Big Tree Park in Longwood, Florida. It’s been around longer than any one of us has and it would be really nice if it stayed that way for centuries to come. A nonprofit organization has collected a sample of this 89-foot tall tree for cloning, The Archangel Ancient Tree Archive is working towards creating living genetic libraries by cloning landmark trees through horticultural propagation.
Lady Liberty is located in the very same Seminole County park where another landmark tree once existed, The Senator it was called, believed to have been approximately 3,500 years old. Unfortunately, The Senator burned down in 2012.
It was only after the unfortunate demise of The Senator that forest activists started to pay greater attention to Lady Liberty’s health. Experts are of the view that the tree will die in the next five years, which gives this cloning exercise more importance.
With its 10 foot diameter and 32-foot circumference, not to mention the fact that it’s been around for a very long time, makes Lady Liberty truly unique. It’s among the largest and oldest trees that exist in the world today.
The Archangel Ancient Tree Archive has now collected a sample from the tree, ultimately moving towards its goal of creating living genetic libraries by cloning these landmark trees, hoping that the effort will help with research and reforestation exercises in the future.
Filed in .. Source: miami.cbslocal