Bennett Juniper

The Bennett Juniper is the largest known juniper tree in America. It is located on a privately owned nature preserve within Stanislaus National Forest in Tuolumne County, California. Its height is 78 feet with an average crown spread of 56 feet. The diameter at breast height (4.5 feet above ground) is 12.7 feet. This gives it a total of 573 points by the American Forests formula for measuring “Big Trees” and determining the champion.

Originally the Bennett was considered to be a western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis). Over time the differences between the northern and southern populations of western junipers justified dividing them into two subspecies and the Bennett is in the southern population which was named Juniperus occidentalis australis. A field guide published by UC Press in 2001 gives the common name Mountain Juniper for the australis population. DNA studies (2006) by Adams resulted in the southern population being raised to species status and it was given the common name “grand juniper” (Juniperus grandis). This name and status is recognized in the USDA Plant Database.

The age of the Bennett has been an enigma and the subject of varied attempts to determine the age. As reported in Madroño the tree was cored in the 1930s by Glock and he estimated the age as about 3,000 years old. The tree was cored again in 1989 by Peter Brown from the University of Arizona Tree Ring Lab at the request of the current owners of the Bennett, Save-the-Redwoods League. His estimate based on a short sample was the age was also almost 3,000 years. During this coring it was discovered that rotten wood was reached about 2 feet into the tree and that the tree was also partially hollow. As a result there will never be a definitive result from a complete core sample.

The steward of the Bennett, Ken Brunges, suggested a novel method for refining the age estimate. He had noted that the marmot (Marmota flaviventris) living within the tree commonly drags out pieces of rotten heartwood from underneath the tree. The idea was to have it Carbon14 tested as that might provide a provable minimum age. In 1994 the 3 samples tested showed to be about 1800 years old. From these results Brown revised his age estimate to be between 2,000 and 2,200 years old. It is unknown by what criteria he defined the samples’ location in the cross-section or in the vertical column. His conclusion also does not account for that the outer foot of the tree having over a 1,000 years of growth rings.

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