Great Tree

Great trees are huge and beautiful trees revered by the Ogier. Within the stedding, they are lovingly tended and almost never die. It is anathema to consider cutting one down. When a Great Tree dies in a storm, the Ogier sing a dirge to mourn its loss. They are not related to Avendesora.
They are described in The Wheel of Time Companion as "mammoth hardwoods that towered hundreds of feet in the air with trunks as much as one hundred paces across". They are also are incredibly old, with the largest having been seedlings during the Age of Legends. Loial mentions them being a hundred spans high. In Stedding Tsofu, we see a Great Tree with a trunk twenty paces thick and "branches spreading like the top of a gigantic mushroom a good hundred paces above the ground". In the centre of the Ogier town in Stedding Tsofu is there remains the stump of a Great Tree a hundred paces wide.
Loial first mentions them being planted in the Ogier groves of human cities "to keep memories of the stedding fresh." They had been cut down in Cairhien so long ago that nobody even remembers them existing. Great Trees still grow in the Ogier grove in Tar Valon and are a hundred spans and more in height. Loial later bemoans the cutting down of the Great Trees in Tear where the Ogier grove had become a pasture for horses.
In Cairhien, Verin Mathwin, Loial, Ingtar Shinowa, Rand, Hurin, Mat and Perrin stay at an inn called The Great Tree, an establishment Verin had stayed at before. Lord Algarin's manor has a large door that is carved with the image of a Great Tree.
A stand of Great Trees are grown upon the field of Merrilor after the Dragon's Peace is established. Elder Haman is impressed to see a human grow Great Trees instead of cutting them down and says the other Ogier must see it for themselves as proof the Great Stump made the right decision to fight alongside humans at Tarmon Gai'don. 
Category:Trees
== Comparison with real trees ==
The Great Trees are individually on par with the tallest living trees on planet Earth as well as being much wider, equal to the trees with the thickest trunks. In terms of age, some of the largest Great Trees are old enough to have existed in the Age of Legends, thus making them at least 3500 years old. This is older than all but two of the oldest known living trees. Furthermore, while the tallest known trees in the world are conifers that have a conical shape, the Great Trees have a branching mushroom-like canopy and therefore spread over a larger amount of the skyline.
== Notes ==
Category:Parallels
Category:Plants