For the Forest and the Trees

Somewhere in the Three Sisters swamp, in southeastern North Carolina, there stands a significant yet undesignated bald cypress tree, gnarled and burled by time and stress, its crown sheared off by the hurricanes and tropical storms that sweep through the region every year, its roots deeply tangled under the Black River tidal sands. Only a handful of scientists and river guides know exactly where the cypress is located, so even if they do take you to see it, you’ll probably never find it again without their help. The tree isn’t exactly a secret, but it is, according to the people who know it best, sacred, and thus guarded by silence.

It is one of the few big cypresses in the swamp that is solid through its center, which in 2013 allowed scientists to analyze core samples to determine the tree’s age. The results were stunning. When this tree began its life, the city of Rome was barely one hundred years old, Africa was