The biggest Joshua tree

Jon Hammond.

The Desert Giant towers over an admirer in the open Mojave south of the town of California City.

If a tree lives long enough in the right conditions, with a lifespan measured in centuries rather than years, it can grow so large that it dwarfs the rest of its kind. There is a Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia) growing near California City that fits this description. It is simply a magnificent specimen, an amazingly large version of the familiar Joshuas that populate the Mojave Desert east of the Tehachapi Mountains.

Different environments have what biologists call indicator species – distinctive animals or plants that are associated with that particular ecoregion. These characteristic species help define the areas where they are found. The Sonoran Desert has saguaro cactus, for example, while the Great Basin Desert has Great Basin sagebrush. In the Mojave Desert, which covers more than a third of Southern California, the indicator species is the Joshua tree.

These slow-growing members of the Desert Agave family were formerly placed in the Lily family. They typically only reach heights of 10 to 15 feet, and have a growth rate of only about an inch a year. The Desert Giant – the Joshua growing south of California City – is more than 40 feet tall and has a circumference of nine feet.

From a distance, this enormous plant doesn't look particularly exceptional. It is very well proportioned and has a single straight trunk with an even, balanced canopy, and it appears to be just another good example of symmetrical Joshua tree. It is growing by itself, and there are no typical Joshuas in the immediate vicinity for a quick size comparison.

When you get close to it, however, it is disorientingly large. It looks like other Joshuas you've seen, but it is a whole order of magnitude larger, like an ostrich egg compared to a chicken egg. I am an admirer of Joshua trees, and I have photographed a hundred of them and have looked at thousands of them. The Desert Giant would tower over all of them, and it is remarkable for its ridiculously large size and perfect shape.

Jon Hammond.

The base of this huge tree, with a 10-inch sheath knife for a size comparison. The tree is nine feet in circumference.

It is difficult to date this huge plant because Joshuas don't form growth rings, but based on botanists' estimates from other big Yucca brevifolia specimens, the Desert Giant is probably 600 to 800 years old.

At one time there were more enormous Joshua trees, but many of them have fallen prey to human mistreatment. A 1932 article in the New York Botanic Gardens Journal reported that the largest Joshua tree known at that time was located in the Antelope Valley about 18 miles east of Lancaster, and it was estimated to be more than 1,000 years old. It was very tall, measuring 80 feet high with a circumference of nine feet. This lighthouse of a tree was set on fire by vandals and completely destroyed.

Jon Hammond.

Slow and steady is the pace that has grown this tree's canopy above the desert floor.

There is reportedly another huge individual in Joshua Tree National Monument near Upper Covington Flats that is not super tall at 36 feet, but has an enormous girth of 14 feet. Some other big ones can be found scattered across the Mojave Desert's 25,000 square miles, but it is clear that Kern County's Desert Giant is one of the largest Joshua trees remaining in existence.

This special tree is not easy to find, it's located along a nameless dirt road west of Airway Boulevard, in the desert south of the main town center of California City. It is thought-provoking to consider that this tree was likely growing before Columbus stumbled into the New World, and was already hundreds of years old before the Declaration of Independence was signed. It also gratifying that such icon still exists, and appears to be in good health and thriving.

Keep enjoying the beauty of life in the Tehachapi Mountains.

Jon Hammond is a fourth generation Kern County resident who has photographed and written about the Tehachapi Mountains for 38 years. He lives on a farm his family started in 1921, and is a speaker of Nuwä, the Tehachapi Indian language. He can be reached at [email protected].