Imagine stepping into a small plaza in the town of Santa María del Tule, Oaxaca, Mexico. There, right beside a centuries-old church, stands a tree so massive, its trunk looks less like wood and more like ancient stone. This is El Árbol del Tule, a Montezuma cypress (Taxodium mucronatum), known for having the widest tree trunk in the world.
📍 El Árbol del Tule on Google Maps.
Key Facts & Mysteries
- Size: In 2005 its trunk had a circumference of about 42 meters, which at certain points translates to over 14 meters in diameter.
- Height: Roughly 35–40 meters tall.
- Age: No one knows for sure. Some estimate 1,200 years, others 2,000-3,000. Local Zapotec tradition says about 1,400 years old.
Legends & Symbolism
There are a couple of deeply rooted legends:
- Zapotec Legend. A priest named Pechocha, worshiper of the wind god Ehécatl, planted the tree about 1,400 years ago.
- Mixe Legend. A king called Condoy (or Kong-Oy) tired from travel, drove his staff or cane into the ground at Tule to rest. That staff sprouted and became the great tree.
Locals also say you can see shapes in the bark and knots — elephants, crocodiles, even a lion or pineapple. For many, the tree seems more alive than just a tree — like an old guardian watching over the town.
Why It’s Special
- The tree is a living witness to centuries of human history — pre-Hispanic, colonial, modern. It’s rooted in land that used to be marshes, part of the wet ecosystem that has since changed drastically.
- Despite threats — droughts, damage to roots, pollution, urban expansion — communities have protected it, mythologized it and made it central to identity.
This mix of very slow time, myth, massive scale, and organic complexity makes El Árbol del Tule an awesome subject for artists.
Music For Drawing
Reference image: Nanahuatl, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Note: The reference photo is real, while the sketch and the colored version were created with the help of AI to serve as inspiration for your own drawing.
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