The Sassafras of Green-Wood

Green-Wood Cemetery has counted this as its oldest tree, possibly older than the cemetery itself, which was founded in 1838 on rolling glacial hills chosen specifically because the terrain already supported mature, established woodland. Sassafras trees rarely reach the size or age this specimen has, since the species usually grows as a smaller understory tree that spreads through root suckers rather than living to great individual age; this one, or rather these two, since it appears as a pair of trunks a few feet apart, may be the last survivors of a larger colonial root system that once covered more ground. Nobody has cored the tree to confirm an exact age, and Green-Wood's own arborists are candid that the favorable growing conditions inside a manicured 478 acre cemetery likely inflate its size relative to a wild sassafras of the same age, making size an unreliable proxy for years here. What is certain is that it predates most of the 600,000 people buried around it, a rare case of a cemetery's oldest resident having no grave at all.