Colombia's Largest Tree Is So Big in Diameter, It Has Grown Pillars to Support Its Branches

What’s the biggest tree in the world? General Sherman is certainly at the top of contenders, but then look at this. In the depths of Colombia’s Caribbean region, there is a tree some mistakenly call ‘The Tree of Guacarí’, which was another enormous tree in the same area, rather similar in looks to the tree we are presenting now. That tree, otherwise called the Samán of Guacarí, used to feature on Colombian 500 peso coins in the 90s.

It's not just one tree, but six trees joined together. Historian Raúl Ospino Rangel gives a splandid description of how the green mass was formed. It all started when in 1964 the owner of the Alejandría farm wanted to protect a yellow cedar tree that he had planted. They placed six fig tree rods around the sapling to prevent the cattle from damaging the young cedar. But the opposite happened: instead of giving security to the cedar tree, the fig tree struts sprouted buds and then branches, which eventually ended up absorbing and devouring the yellow cedar.