If you spend enough time wandering through Florida, you realize we have some kick-ass trees. When we started brainstorming for this year's summer guide, the idea of our favorite trees seemed like a nifty sidebar — until I started asking my friends and I started getting unsolicited emails about their favorite trees.
It seems no article about our favorite trees is complete without a photo of the oak in Safety Harbor, Charles in Roser Park, a respectful RIP to the Senator in Sanford... the list goes on and on. Seriously, this is not what I expected when we started talking about trees. Since we can't list them all, we give you a few of our favorite trees.
Up in Brooksville at Chinsegut, where slaves used to farm sugarcane, you can find this live oak, with a ladder up to a small wooden balcony. Look out over it and you'll see... more trees. Acres and acres of trees: A few wild orange trees, more oaks, bamboo stalks higher than most of the trees there.
Near this tree another towering oak stands: The Altar Oak. Look closely at it and you'll see rods running from branch to branch; go around the back and you'll see cement and metal reinforcements keeping this tree upright. That's a serious commitment to a tree.
The tree you won't easily find at Chinsegut is the Lenin Oak. The Southern Blog — and others — refer to it as "the communist tree." See, Margaret Dreier and her husband, Raymond Robins, had a deep sympathy for labor reforms (including child labor laws) and watched the 1917 Bolshevik revolution with keen interest. Robins met Nikolai Lenin when he led the Revolution, and spoke with him more than once. In 1918, Dreier planted an acorn in Lenin's honor. A plaque in front of the sapling read: "PLANTED BY MARGARET DREIER ROBINS, IST OF MAY 1918 – IN MEMORY OF THE LEADER OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, NIKOLAI LENIN. ‘THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN SUFFERETH VIOLENCE. AND THE VIOLENT TAKE IT BY FORCE.'”
All was fine until a red scare gripped America and the "communist tree" caused an uproar at local and federal levels. The plaque was thrown into nearby Lake Lindsey. The oak may very well remain; finding it, however, proves problematic.
Down in the Everglades City/Chokoloskee area, I can't name one favorite tree — but the mangroves grow taller there than they do up here, and if you take an airboat ride (I'm partial to Totch's Island Tours) you'll find yourself zooming through tunnels created by these massive trees, with prop roots that tower above you. It feels a little like being in the realm of the Goblin King.
Closer to home, this shell tree marks the southwestern tip of Caladesi Island, which became a misnomer after storms filled in the pass between Caladesi and north Clearwater Beach.
Some shells have an inscription, making it a highly personalized tree and — I'm certain — a favorite of many who have left their mark. Most, though, have no such markings.
While beach erosion bothers those with houses on the sand and real estate developers, if you have no financial stake in seeing the beach remain unaltered, you can see the beauty of erosion. This tree, facing west from Fort DeSoto, showed the world its roots as it went from living thing to standing driftwood.Up near Fernandina, Bosque Bellow Cemetery has lots of old headstones — and, as cool as they are, the trees are even cooler.
Here's a closeup.
This gumbo limbo tree at the DeSoto National Memorial in Sarasota fronts Tampa Bay as it meets the Gulf. You can see the Sunshine Skyway Bridge from this vantagepoint; this tree may also be largest gumbo limbo tree north of South Florida.
As the sign says, though, it won't be around forever. It has a disease that eats the tree from the inside out, park rangers say. In addition, they suspect it's at the end of its lifespan. In 2014 and 2015, the community donated thousands of dollars to help save the tree; the monies went for installing a steel cable and injecting beneficial fungi to combat the disease.
And, of course, there's Charles. Named after Charles Roser, this oak tree lives in — you guessed it — Roser Park. It arches out over Booker Creek, and all the locals (including CL's editor-in-chief, David W.) know him by name.
The Senator, which Sanford locals (and the Orlando Sentinel) claimed was the oldest bald cypress tree in the world, fell in 2012. A meth head set the 3500-year-old tree ablaze; she told police it was not intentional; she lit a fire inside the tree to see the meth she was trying to light. She's in prison now, which is OK by us.
After all, we do love our trees.