The great Eagle Tree, a native Western Sycamore (Platanus racemosa), stood for centuries in what is now the City of Compton as a natural landmark. The tree was so remarkable in size and distinction that it was recorded by Henry Hancock on his Rancho San Pedro survey (1857) as the “Place of Beginning.”

In April 1947, in co-operation with the Standard Oil Company who held a pipeline easement beneath the tree, the Compton Parlor, Native Daughters of the Golden West, unveiled a large boulder set with a plaque marking the Eagle Tree’s cultural and historic significance.

Around 2017, the Eagle Tree ceased producing leaves, possibly after a lightning strike. The trunk remained standing. Then on April 7, 2022 around 9:20pm, the Eagle Tree fell, leaving a healthy young clone growing from its roots.

Preservationists Kim Cooper and Richard Schave (Esotouric) urged the City of Compton and Standard Oil’s successor company Chevron Oil to preserve the 7-ton trunk as a historic resource, and it was moved to safety by crane.

Then, working with environmental horticulturist Dr. Donald R. Hodel, they arranged with Chevron to access the site over a number of months to take genetically identical cuttings from root suckers from the original specimen. These are being cared for by botanists at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, California Botanic Garden in Claremont and the Theodore Payne Foundation.

Many of the cuttings have survived, and are growing into young Eagle Trees that will soon be put into the care of North East Trees and made available for distribution to municipalities and historic sites around Southern California, including the original site in Compton, to preserve the legacy and story of this iconic living landmark.

Each clone’s location will be noted on this map, so that interested community members can go visit and celebrate the living history of the Eagle Tree and the value of planting and caring for native trees.

Eagle Tree Clone #1 has been nurtured by the Theodore Payne Foundation, and will be planted at 1pm on Monday, April 22, 2024 at East Los Angeles College as an Earth Day project by Professor Stephen Koletty’s Environmental Science Lab students. The sapling will be displayed by the Earth Sciences (G8) Building and then carried to its new site, the boundary lawn area at the front of the campus along Avenida Cesar Chavez just south of Parking Structure 3 next to the ELAC kiosk. The public is welcome to attend. On campus parking will be free on Earth Day. Parking Structure 4, on the corner of West Floral and Collegian Avenue, is nearest to the G8 Building. We’ll be there, as will representatives of North East Trees, who have joined the project as a community partner to help care for the growing saplings, and to aid in their planting through the wider community.

Eagle Tree Clones will soon be planted on the grounds of the Vedanta Society of Southern California’s Hollywood Temple (where a very old Sycamore tree is dying), and in the garden of the Historic J.B. Winston House at 1407 Carroll Avenue (Joseph Cather Newsom, 1889, Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 189).

If you represent a municipality, botanical garden, arboreta, public park, historic or community site and are interested in caring for a clone of the Eagle Tree, please read Dr. Donald R. Hodel’s information sheet below, then contact Kim and Richard at tours@esotouric.com.

April 8, 2024: a wee Eagle Tree clone is drinking in the weird light of the eclipse, as her mother did so many times over the centuries.

The Eagle Tree
Its Significance and Future in the Southern California Landscape
by Donald R. Hodel, Emeritus Landscape Horticulture Advisor
University of California, Cooperative Extension
Los Angeles

The Eagle Tree (Platanus racemosa) is no more, but it lives on. The original, California native tree specimen that was used to mark rancho boundaries in 18^th-century Spanish land grant days, named for the great birds that once nested in it, and documented in Exceptional Trees of Los Angeles (D. R. Hodel, California Arboretum Foundation, 1988), sadly died and fell in 2022. However, its mighty trunk is preserved and a suitable home to display and interpret it is being considered. Furthermore, through the efforts of several preservationists and botanical gardens, cuttings from root suckers from the original specimen have been successfully rooted and grown on and are awaiting homes where they can be appropriately planted, displayed, and interpreted. Because they were propagated asexually through cuttings, they are genetically identical to the now dead original Eagle Tree specimen.

These young Eagle Tree descendants would be ideal for botanical gardens, arboreta, and public parks and other large open spaces where they can be grown to maturity and their cultural significance and history shared and interpreted.

Some things to consider when selecting these trees include:

1. These are California native trees; thus, they are typically well adapted to our Southern California climate from the coast to the mountains.
2. Although a California native species, the trees naturally tend to grow around streams, seeps, springs, or other year-round or seasonal water courses; thus, they would do best with occasional summer irrigation although established trees can tolerate some periods with little or no water, especially near the coast. This species is suitable for planting in lawns and can survive adequately on lawn irrigation. They will also perform well in non-lawn areas with mostly unrestricted root zones, natural leaf-litter mulch, and occasional (once every three weeks) summer drip irrigation from the trunk at least out to the canopy drip line, moistening the root zone to at least 12 inches deep at each irrigation event.
3. This species can grow large, up to 80 feet tall and nearly as wide. So, give it appropriate space, not only for the canopy and trunk but also for its roots. The planting space should be at least 20 × 20 feet.
4. These trees need full sun to perform best.

This species is not overly susceptible to the typical roster of diseases and pests,  and given proper cultivation, should tolerate these without serious problems and grow into a much admired and beloved tree.