American photographer Beth Moon has spent the past 14 years travelling the world in a quest to document the world's biggest, rarest and oldest trees. Most have only survived thanks to their isolation on remote mountainsides, private estates, or nature preserves, but just a few maintain a proud, though often precarious, existence in the midst of civilization
In the man-made world there is nothing like the vast, wizened majesty of an ancient tree. They are living links to the distant past whose very existence mocks the transience of our own mortality.
American photographer Beth Moon has spent the past 14 years travelling the world in a quest to document the world's biggest, rarest and oldest trees. Most have only survived thanks to their isolation on remote mountainsides, private estates, or nature preserves, but just a few maintain a proud, though often precarious, existence in the midst of civilization.
'Standing as the earth’s largest and oldest living monuments, I believe these symbolic trees will take on a greater significance, especially at a time when our focus is directed at finding better ways to live with the environment, celebrating the wonders of nature that have survived throughout the centuries,' she writes on her website.
'By feeling a larger sense of time, developing a relationship with the natural world, we carry that awareness with us as it becomes a part of who we are.'
Bristlecone pine: This tree could be one of several particularly old specimens in the U.S., which are believed to be up to 5,000 years old
Croft chestnut: This ancient tree in the grounds of Croft Castle in the Welsh Marches is between 400 and 500 years old
The Sentinels of St Edwards These yews framing the door of a church in Stow-on-the-Wood, Gloucestershire, inspired JRR Tolkien
Wakehurst Yews: These yews at Kew's country estate, Wakehurst Place, were a few years ago found to be more than 600 years old
Buffelsdrift Baobab: This massive tree near Lephalale, Limpopo, is one of South Africa's five biggest baobab trees
Rilke's Bayon: This massive tree is growing from ruins in Cambodia
Off To Market: This picture shows women walking past the baobab trees of Madagascar on their way shopping
Quiver Trees At Dusk: These South African trees, a type of aloe, are named for the practise of hollowing out their branches to make quivers
Kings Canyon Sequoias: The giant sequoia is the world's most massive tree, and arguably the largest living organism on Earth
General Sherman: This tree in California's Sequoia National Park is by volume the largest known living single stem tree on Earth
The Nantglyn Pulpit Yew: This yew, rumoured to be 5,000 years old, can be found outside St James Parish Church in Nantglyn, Denbighshire
Ifaty teapot: This particularly stout, almost bottle-shaped baobab tree specimen grows near the west coast of Madagascar
- Beth Moon's photographs appear in her book Ancient Trees: Portraits of Time, published by Abbeville Press
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