Photo: Heath Cajandig (CC BY 2.0)
Roughly 350 to 400 years old.
Oldest trees in Missouri
The oldest tree we map in Missouri is The Big Tree (Williamson Bur Oak) in Columbia, Missouri, at 350 to 400 years. We map 5 trees across 2 places in Missouri, each one researched and verified.
Missouri's most famous old tree stands alone in a field. The Big Tree near Columbia is a bur oak of three to four centuries, already about two hundred years old when Lewis and Clark came up the Missouri River in 1804 It has sat through lightning and the floods of 1993 and 1995, and it is tied as the national champion of its species. It stands on family farmland and is seen from the road. Kansas City's old trees are a different kind: the lawn of the Linda Hall Library is a registered arboretum, and its trees are catalogued by number. A double-flowered horse chestnut that never drops a conker stands there, beside a purple beech far from the cool woods it came from, and a hardy rubber tree whose torn leaves hang together on threads of latex.
Every place we map in Missouri
5 species grow in Missouri
Oaks Bur Oak 1 · Shumard Oak 1
Beeches Rivers Purple Beech 1
Chestnuts, walnuts and hazels Double Flowered Horsechestnut 1
More broadleaf trees Hardy Rubber Tree 1
The 5 oldest trees we map in Missouri
Roughly 60 to 75 years old.
Roughly 50 to 65 years old.
Roughly 45 to 60 years old.
Roughly 45 to 55 years old.
Trees from Missouri also appear in The Autumn Harvest · The Tallest Trees We Have Measured · The Oldest Tree in Every City We Map. See every place we map in the United States, or open the map to find what is near you.