What is the oldest tree in Seattle?
The oldest tree in Seattle is the Big Tree in Seward Park, a Douglas fir of roughly 400 to 500 years standing in the old-growth remnant on the peninsula, with a bald eagle nest near its top. Nobody publishes exactly where it is in the park's 120 acres, so finding it is part of the walk, and the much younger fir the park's own leaflet starts you at is not it. A second old-growth survivor, Sylvia, stands in Kirkland's O.O. Denny Park at roughly 500 to 600 years, close enough in age that either tree could be the true elder; neither has been cored.
Seattle names its Heritage Trees through a programme the city runs with the group PlantAmnesty, and the city's own tree records give a height, a trunk diameter and a position for some of them. Four of the sixteen trees here come from those records, and their pins mark the trunk. The rest come from tree walks, local historians and Washington's state champion list, which records size rather than age, so most of their pins are approximate, meaning we know the park and not the trunk. Seven of the sixteen trees have no recorded age at all. That includes the giant sequoia on Capitol Hill, where the city's own tree-walk leaflet quotes a height and a diameter that belong to what the species can reach rather than to this tree, a number that gets repeated until somebody checks it. Sylvia, the old-growth survivor in Kirkland, comes closest to challenging the Seward Park fir for the oldest-tree title, and neither has been cored to settle it. If you have a tape measure and ten minutes in Volunteer Park, you can settle the sequoia, and we will put your figure on the page.
One of Seattle's trees also appears in Autumn Worth the Trip.