Discover the Oldest Tree in South Carolina

South Carolina is known for its beaches, golf courses, and civil war history, but its forests and swamp lands are equally amazing. Did you know there are some ancient trees there? Let’s discover the oldest tree in South Carolina and check out its rivals too!

What is the Oldest Tree In South Carolina?

The recorded oldest tree in South Carolina is the Angel Oak, a southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) that’s an estimated 400-500 years old.

This old tree stands 66.5 feet tall with a 28 feet circumference trunk. Its longest branch is 187 feet, and it casts shade for 17,000 square feet.

If the Angel Oak is 500 years old, it was a young sapling when Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492. No doubt this tree has seen a lot of change. It’s certainly survived earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes, including Hurricane Hugo in 1989, which damaged its branches but not enough to topple the trunk.

However, there is debate surrounding Angel Oak and its oldest tree in South Carolina title. There are claims that bald cypress trees among South Carolina’s forests are much older with some estimates suggesting they are 1,000 years old.

These claims are not proven, but sometime in the future, the Angel Oak may lose its crown.

Where is South Carolina’s Oldest Tree?

The City of Charleston owns Angel Oak. It’s located on John’s Island, and it’s the main attraction of the city park.

400,000 people discover the oldest tree in South Carolina each year. The park is open seven days a week, and although you are discouraged from touching it, you can stand beneath its canopy and soak up its history.

Why is it called the Angel Oak?

The Angel Oak is named after plantation owners Justus Angel and his wife Martha Waight Tucker Angel, who owned the land it stood on in the early 1800s. Legend has it that lynched slaves return as ghosts to protect the tree.

Emily Nelson’s The Heart of a Child novel features the Angel Oak. It’s enjoyed by many people attending social events, and it’s the backdrop of many wedding photographs too.

What is a Live Oak?

Quercus virginiana is the scientific name for southern live oaks. These long-lived trees get their common name, live oak, from their tendency to hold onto leaves in winter, unlike other oak species that drop their foliage.

It’s not technically an evergreen, but considered so.

South Carolina is home to many live oaks, and they are an iconic species of the deep South. They survive drought through their long taproot, which also serves as an anchor against strong winds and is the reason why so many remain standing after hurricanes pass through.

Native Americans would bend live oak tree branches and sapling trees to grow at sharp angles. This created trail markers to help find pathways, but it didn’t give the secret trail away because live oaks tend to naturally grow at angles. The Angel Oak has branches that swerve down, enter the soil, and grow back out again.

The oldest and largest live oak in the deep south is the Seven Sisters Oak in Mandeville, Louisiana. It’s 500-1000 years old and only 57 feet tall, but it has a limb spread of 153 feet.

In 1812 the USS Constitution ship survived repeated cannonball fire and was nicknamed Old Ironsides. Can you guess what she was constructed from? Live oak.

Other Old South Carolinian Trees

South Carolina has other old trees. The Willow Oak on Russell Avenue, Greenville, for example, is 150 years old. This old tree is a Quercus phellos with a height of 111 feet.

And then there are the bald cypress forests, such as the Francis Beidler Forest in Four Holes Swamp. The National Audubon Society manages it, and there are claims that 1,000-year-old cypress trees grow in the floodplains.

Where is the Tallest Tree in South Carolina?

The tallest tree in South Carolina is a tulip tree located at Tamassee Knob in the Sumter National Forest, Oconee County. It’s 169.1 feet tall.

The second tallest tree in South Carolina is a white pine measuring 168.9 feet tall. This one grows in Sumter National Forest Park, too, in the East fork of the Chattooga River, Ellicott Rock Wilderness.

However, the tallest tree in the world dwarfs these lofty beauties.

Hyperion is a 380 feet tall coastal redwood tree in northern California. It’s the tallest tree in the world, but no trail heads towards it because tourists have significantly damaged the surrounding environment.

Hyperion stands close to the second and third tallest trees in the world. Helios and Icarus are also coastal redwoods. Second place, Helios is just three feet shorter than Hyperion.

Where is the Oldest Tree on Earth?

The oldest tree in South Carolina is the 400-500-year-old Angel Oak, but even if the forest’s bald cypress trees, estimated at 1,000 years, take its crown, they are still mere babies compared to the world’s oldest tree, Methuselah.

Methuselah is 4,853 years old, compared with the Pyramids of Egypt, and the oldest living thing on our planet.

It’s a bristlecone pine standing in the Inyo Forest of California’s Great Basin. Methuselah has other bristlecone pines around it dating to 3,000 years old by experts in 1957.

All titles are challenged, of course, and recently a new contender for the world’s oldest tree has emerged. It’s a Patagonian cypress in the La Union Valley, Chili. Experts estimate this ancient tree is 5,848 years old, 600 years older than Methuselah. Due to its great age, it is Gran Abuelo or great-grandfather.

How Many Trees are there in South Carolina?

13.1 million acres of South Carolina’s land is forest. That’s 68% and ranked eighth among the most forested states. If you’re curious, Maine is the most forested State, with a forested land cover of 89%.

The most common type of tree in South Carolina’s forests is the loblolly shortleaf pine group. In 2011 the United States Department for Agriculture recorded 2.4 billion stems, which covered 42% of forest land.

South Carolina’s Native Trees

South Carolina has many native tree species. Not all have old specimens, but here are some of the most common.

• Cabbage Palmetto

The Sabla palmetto is South Carolina’s official state tree. It can reach 65 feet tall on its fibrous trunk and survive long droughts.

• Red Maple

Red maple, Acer rubrum, swamp maple, water maple, or soft maple is one of the most abundant native trees. It’s a deciduous tree whose leaves turn red in fall.  

• American Beech

Fagus grandifolia is a native species of beech tree with smooth gray bark and green oval leaves. It can reach 80 feet tall.

• American Holly

Ilex opaca, the American holly, is common in the south-central United States. It has bright red berries that mockingbirds take advantage of and spiky, glossy green leaves.

• Eastern Hemlock

Tsuga canadensis is an evergreen tree that can reach 100 feet tall. It has scaly bark and two-tone foliage that’s paler beneath. Its thick canopy provides lots of bird shelter.

• Eastern Red Cedar

Juniperus virginiana is a coniferous evergreen that’s native to South Carolina. It has fragrant timber and provides a habitat for great purple hairstreak butterfly larvae.  

• Southern Magnolia

Magnolia grandiflora is a beautiful native South Carolina tree that’s often known as Bull Bay. It’s an evergreen with large citrus-yellow blooms with a waxy texture. The champion Southern Magnolia is 121 feet tall and located in Mississippi.

Our journey to discover the oldest tree in South Carolina has uncovered the 400-500-year-old Angel Oak and potentially even older bald cypress trees in the floodplains of South Carolina’s forests.

Although they aren’t as old as Methuselah or Gran Abeulo, they are precious to our landscapes and worthy of our admiration.

The Oldest Tree in South Carolina was Recently Saved!

The Angel Oak was recently under threat from property developers. This Lowcountry treasure was saved by conservationists and locals who raised enough money to buy a 35-acre buffer zone around Angel Oak. This prevents developments from ever disturbing it.  

Let’s hope it grows for another 500 years.

Where is Tamassee Knob Located on a Map?

Tamassee Knob, a peak within the Sumter National Forest in Oconee County, South Carolina, is home to the tallest tree in the state. This tree is a majestic tulip tree, which towers over its neighboring trees in height. With its magnificent height and striking presence, it’s no wonder that this tree is a popular attraction for visitors to the forest.

Here is Tamassee Knob on a map:

The photo featured at the top of this post is © iStock.com/Michael Ver Sprill