The Tule Cypress tree at Tule (Santa María del Tule), the stoutest tree (33 feet across) in the world, with a circumference of nearly 140 feet, is about 2 to 3000 years old— older than Christ. Only our redwoods match it in venerable girth and age.
El Árbol del Tule is often called the Sabino tree, or el ahuehuete (āhuēhuētl, old man, or drum of the water) in Nahuatl. Some say that the Montezuma bald cypress (Taxodium mucronatum), was planted by a priest of Ehecatl, the Aztec storm god.
Whatever you prefer to call it, El Árbol del Tule is the sacred tree of the Zapotec creation myth. The tree has long since outgrown the church plaza, they say it is slowly dying. Though it is drought tolerant, the tule springs that once fed it, and kept its roots wet, can no longer quench its thirst.
Someone tells us to look for the six dwarfs, the jaguars, the giraffes, and the elephant hidden in the gnarled folds of the trunk. What ever animals you see in the folds of the trunk, it is a party animal, and has its own annual fiesta the second Monday in October.
There are six other massive cypresses in town. Valle de Oaxaca must've been a marshy lake-bed at one point. Even the native acacia trees here are old and venerable.
No date. Written near Aug 9 post.
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