What is the oldest tree in Washington DC?

The oldest documented tree in the centre is the Grant Memorial Bur Oak in Union Square on the Capitol grounds. The largest, and possibly older still, is the champion chestnut oak in Battery Kemble Park in the city's northwest.

Are the original 1912 cherry trees still alive?

Yes. The two Yoshino cherries planted on 27 March 1912 by First Lady Helen Taft and Viscountess Chinda still stand near the Tidal Basin's north edge, marked by a plaque, among the thousands of younger trees the annual festival celebrates.

Are Washington DC's remarkable trees free to visit?

All six on this list are free. Five stand on public federal ground on or near the National Mall and Capitol grounds; the champion chestnut oak stands in Battery Kemble Park, a free city park in the northwest.

When should I visit the Tidal Basin cherries?

Late March to early April, when they flower. The peak shifts with the year; the two original 1912 trees flower with the rest.

United States

Ancient Trees in Washington DC

Washington is a planned city, and its remarkable trees were planned with it, which means they come with paperwork most cities can only envy. The National Park Service keeps a register of witness trees, individuals that stood through history rather than beside it, and the Architect of the Capitol records plantings on the Capitol grounds to the year. The six below run from the two original 1912 cherry trees that started the Tidal Basin tradition to a bur oak older than the memorial it shades. Five sit on or near the Mall, one walk apart; all six are free.

The Grant Memorial Bur Oak

Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa) · roughly 175 years, possibly older · Capitol Hill / National Mall (Union Square)

In the 1930s Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. cleared about 250 trees out of Union Square and transplanted 41 more. This bur oak he left exactly where it was. It has grown on this spot since at least 1850, when the United States Botanic Garden moved its greenhouse collections onto this ground, which makes it one of the very few trees on the Capitol campus that predates the twentieth century redesign of everything around it. The Architect of the Capitol puts it at 150 to 175 years. The National Park Service witness tree survey is more careful and says the true age is simply unknown, noting only that aerial photographs taken at the Grant Memorial's dedication in April 1922 already show a large, well developed tree. Read 175 years as a floor rather than a figure. What it has outlived: the demolition of the old Botanic Garden buildings in 1930, Olmsted's redesign of the square, and the 1971 installation of the Capitol Reflecting Pool, which took out most of the trees that were still standing. When surveyed in November 2006 it measured 125 feet tall, with an 85 foot crown and a trunk 165 inches around, the largest bur oak recorded in Washington. Bur oaks can approach a thousand years and are not considered mature until 200 or 300. By the standards of its own species, this giant is still young.

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The First Cherry Trees of the Tidal Basin

Yoshino Cherry (Prunus x yedoensis) · roughly 114 years · Tidal Basin / West Potomac Park

Two trees started everything the Tidal Basin is now known for. On 27 March 1912 First Lady Helen Herron Taft and Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, each planted a Yoshino cherry on the north bank, the first two of a gift of more than 3,000 from Tokyo. Around a hundred of that original planting are thought to survive. These two are the ones you can actually pick out, marked by a bronze plaque at their base. They are old for what they are. Yoshino cherries in cultivation usually manage 50 to 100 years, and these are past 114, which is why the Park Service treats their survival as a story rather than a footnote. They were rooted here before the Lincoln Memorial was finished, before the Jefferson Memorial went up across the water, and before the festival that now walks well over a million people past them every spring. One honest note on the pin. The coordinates come from the surveyed position of the commemorative marker rather than from the trunks, and the marker itself has since been replaced by another one nearby, so expect to hunt for the plaque along a short stretch of path roughly 125 feet south of Independence Avenue. The trees are within a stone's throw of it.

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The Battery Kemble Chestnut Oak

Chestnut Oak (Quercus montana) · over 165 years, likely pre-dating the Civil War · Palisades

The largest tree in Washington may owe its size to having been cut down. In 1861 the Union Army built Battery Kemble on this hill to defend the capital from the west, and the standard practice at the city's earthworks was to clear the ground for a field of fire, felling trees about five feet above the soil. Chestnut oak, unusually among oaks, resprouts readily from a cut stump. This tree's low, wide, multi stemmed form is exactly what that produces, which is why every account says it was around before the Civil War instead of giving it a planting date. The measurements do the rest of the talking. Casey Trees' volunteer big tree survey crowned it the city's largest known tree in 2023, at 24 feet 3 inches around, and American Forests lists it as a national co-champion, meaning no bigger chestnut oak has been recorded anywhere in the United States. Take the 165 years as a floor: the root system under those stems could be considerably older than the trunks standing on it. It grows in a quiet neighbourhood park in the Palisades rather than downtown, and no source publishes coordinates for the tree itself. The pin is the park, so the last stretch is done on foot and by eye. At that circumference, you will know it when you reach it.

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The National Mall Jefferson Elm

American Elm (Ulmus americana 'Jefferson') · roughly 91 years · National Mall

Every 'Jefferson' elm planted in the United States is a cutting taken from this tree. It went into the ground around 1935, one of roughly 600 American elms set in four rows to frame the Mall's central green, and by rights it should have died with the rest. Dutch elm disease reached the Mall in 1950 and had killed more than 200 of that planting by 1994. In the early 1990s the Park Service pathologist Horace Wester noticed that tree number 3-487 leafed out earlier than its neighbours and held its leaves longer. A decade of testing by the Park Service, the National Arboretum and Michigan State confirmed genuine resistance to the disease. DNA work then found something stranger: the tree is triploid, carrying 42 chromosomes where an American elm carries 56, which appears to explain both the resistance and the strong U shaped branch unions that keep it from splitting in storms. In February 2005 cuttings went out to commercial nurseries as the 'Jefferson' cultivar, named for the drive it stands beside. It is neither the oldest nor the biggest tree in this city, and it may be the most consequential, because American elms are going back into streets across the country on the strength of its genetics. The survey that recorded it placed it across Jefferson Drive from the Freer Gallery without giving a coordinate, so this pin is close rather than exact.

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The Washington Monument Witness Mulberry

White Mulberry (Morus alba) · roughly 130-140 years · National Mall (Washington Monument grounds)

This tree fell over in May 2019 and the Park Service refused to remove it. Days of rain had saturated the ground on the Washington Monument lawn, the main buttress root snapped, and the larger of two old white mulberries here went down. Instead of cutting it up, arborists raised the trunk back by about ten degrees, enough to encourage new feeder roots without tearing what was left of the root plate, and built it a steel crutch. It has been standing nearly horizontal on that prop ever since, living on roughly 60 percent of its roots. Its neighbour, the shorter of the pair, leans hard and is crutched too, and is in better condition. Both are recorded by the Park Service witness tree programme as part of the landscape planted after the monument was completed in 1885, probably in the 1890s, which puts them somewhere around 130 to 140 years old. Be clear about what this is. It is not a grand tree and it is not a pretty one. It is a public agency visibly refusing to give up on something that history happened around, propped in plain sight at roughly seven o'clock on the circular path. And it is fragile: the most recent confirmation of its condition we have found dates from December 2023, so that is the last time anyone we can cite looked at it.

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The Botanic Garden Elm

Caucasian Elm (Zelkova carpinifolia) · roughly 175 years, possibly older · Capitol Hill / National Mall (Union Square)

When Union Square was rebuilt in the 1930s, five Caucasian elms survived the clearance. Four were dug up and transplanted. This one was left exactly where it grew, which is why it matters more than the other four. It has stood on this spot since around 1850, when the United States Botanic Garden moved its greenhouse collections here, some of them gathered on the Wilkes Expedition of 1838 to 1842. Zelkova carpinifolia comes from the mountains of the Caucasus and northern Iran and is still an uncommon tree in American planting. This one is almost certainly among the largest in the country, though it will never appear in the national register of champion trees, which tracks native species only. The Park Service survey calls it the most historically significant tree remaining in Union Square, because it is the one that combines all three things: planted in the Botanic Garden's own period, never moved, and genuinely rare. Its position saved it twice. Sitting at the far southwest edge, well outside the central vista Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. was carving, it escaped the 1930s clearance that took 250 trees, then escaped again in 1971 when the Capitol Reflecting Pool went in and destroyed most of what remained. The Architect of the Capitol puts it at 150 to 175 years. The Grant Memorial bur oak, from the same original planting, stands about 350 metres away across the same square.

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Frequently asked

What is the oldest tree in Washington DC?: The oldest documented tree in the centre is the Grant Memorial Bur Oak in Union Square on the Capitol grounds. The largest, and possibly older still, is the champion chestnut oak in Battery Kemble Park in the city's northwest.
Are the original 1912 cherry trees still alive?: Yes. The two Yoshino cherries planted on 27 March 1912 by First Lady Helen Taft and Viscountess Chinda still stand near the Tidal Basin's north edge, marked by a plaque, among the thousands of younger trees the annual festival celebrates.
Are Washington DC's remarkable trees free to visit?: All six on this list are free. Five stand on public federal ground on or near the National Mall and Capitol grounds; the champion chestnut oak stands in Battery Kemble Park, a free city park in the northwest.
When should I visit the Tidal Basin cherries?: Late March to early April, when they flower. The peak shifts with the year; the two original 1912 trees flower with the rest.
More on the oldest tree: What is the oldest tree in Washington DC? The full answer, with map and directions.
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National MallWalk 3 of these trees about 1.35 km, 16 min on foot