The Senator II is a bald cypress in Reiter Park that provides habitat for wildlife and carries on the legacy of the Senator, a famous tree that took root thousands of years ago in a nearby forest and inspired the creation of Longwood’s Big Tree park. The Senator was estimated to be 3,500 years old and, at 118 feet tall, was the largest tree east of the Mississippi and one of the oldest living organisms in the world. It had once reached 165 feet before a hurricane snapped its top in 1925, and in 2012 it caught fire and burned down. Cuttings taken several years before its destruction were grown into clones, including the Senator II, which could one day grow that tall, though it will take hundreds of years. When bald cypress trees are young they are shaped like pyramids, and as they grow they develop flared trunks and sometimes roots that rise above the ground called cypress knees.