The biggest Joshua tree

You don't want to shake hands with him, but his ties with us humans are the stuff of legends.

In the first written account of the Joshua Tree, Captain John C. Fremont proclaimed it "... the most repulsive tree in the vegetable kingdom." True, given their needle-sharp "leaves," Joshua trees are not very huggable, and their form suggests less a tree than a creation of Dr. Seuss. But a group of Mormons, who gave this symbol of the Mojave Desert its name, had a very different impression. All along the way from San Bernardino, California, to Utah, these strange plants reminded the travelers of the biblical Joshua pointing the way to the Promised Land.

The champion Joshua tree was probably alive in 1857 when the Mormons migrated, but its exact age will never be known because Joshua trees, like palm trees, have no growth rings. Compared to most Joshuas today, the champion looks like a genetic experiment gone bad. But its scores of gesticulating branches are actually a sign of old age; it branches after each flowering.

Humans have a shared history with the Joshua tree that predates the champion, Fremont, and the Mormons by some 10,000 years. At the end of the last ice age, near what is now Las Vegas, early Americans left evidence of having dined on Nothrotherium, a now extinct seven-foot ground sloth. Analysis of its fossilized dung showed that 80 percent of the sloth's diet was leaves of the Joshua tree.

None of this would be history without the yucca moth, on which the Joshua depends for pollination. The female moth deposits her eggs in the ovary of a Joshua tree flower and then collects pollen and forces it down the stigma. This guarantees that the tree's fruit and seeds will develop, some to feed the moth's young, the rest to propagate Joshua trees. The female yucca moth may lack conscious intention, but she acts for the health of her descendants and the Joshua tree ecosystem, not to obtain nectar for her own short-term economic gain. Hmm. Now, there's an idea.

COMMON NAME                   JOSHUA TREE
SCIENTIFIC NAME               YUCCA BREVIFOLIA
LOCATION                      SAN BERNARDINO NAT'L FOREST, CA
NOMINATOR                     RONALD McCORMICK
OWNER                         U.S. FOREST SERVICE
MOST RECENT MEASUREMENT       1967
CIRCUMFERENCE AT 4 1/2 FT.    179 IN.
HEIGHT                        32 FT.
CROWN SPREAD                  40 FT.
TOTAL POINTS                  221

COPYRIGHT 1993 American Forests
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group