There are probably hundreds of majestic and magnificent trees in the world - of these, some are particularly special:
Lone Cypress in Monterey :
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Buffeted by the cold Pacific Ocean wind, the scraggly Lone Cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa) in Pebble Beach, Monterey Peninsula, California, isn’t a particularly large tree. It makes up for its small size, however, with its iconic status as a stunningly beautiful tree in splendid isolation, framed by an even more beautiful background of the Pacific Ocean.
Circus Trees
As a hobby, bean farmer Axel Erlandson shaped trees - he pruned, bent, and grafted trees into fantastic shapes and called them "Circus Trees." For example, to make this "Basket Tree" arborsculpture, Erlandson planted six sycamore trees in a circle and then grafted them together to form the diamond patterns.
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Axel Erlandson underneath one of his arborsculpture
Erlandson was very secretive and refused to reveal his methods on how to grow the Circus Trees (he even carried out his graftings behind screens to protect against spies!) and carried the secrets to his grave.
The trees were later bought by millionaire Michael Bonfante, who transplanted them to his amusement park Bonfante Gardens in Gilroy in 1985.
Giant Sequoias: General Sherman.
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Giant Sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum), which only grow in Sierra Nevada, California, are the world’s biggest trees (in terms of volume). The biggest is General Sherman in the Sequoia National Park - one behemoth of a tree at 275 feet (83.8 m), over 52,500 cubic feet of volume (1,486 m³), and over 6000 tons in weight.
General Sherman is approximately 2,200 years old - and each year, the tree adds enough wood to make a regular 60-foot tall tree. It’s no wonder that naturalist John Muir said "The Big Tree is Nature’s forest masterpiece, and so far as I know, the greatest of living things."
For over a century there was a fierce competition for the title of the largest tree: besides General Sherman, there is General Grant at King’s Canyon National Park, which actually has a
larger circumference (107.5 feet / 32.77 m vs. Sherman’s 102.6 feet / 31.27 m).
In 1921, a team of surveyors carefully measured the two
giants - with their data, and according to the complex American Forestry Association system of judging a tree, General Grant should have been award the title of largest tree - however, to simplify the matter, it was later determined that in this case, volume, not point system, should be the determining factor.