The Phoenix is a clone of “The Senator,” Florida’s state champion bald cypress tree, which endured an estimated 3,500 years of Florida’s extreme weather, forest fires, and the logging boom of the early 1900s, and even survived a hurricane that knocked off the top 40 feet of its crown before it was lost to an arson fire on January 16, 2012. In the mid 1990s, high school teacher Laymond Hardy, Marvin Buchannan of Central Florida Lands and Timber Nursery, and Dr. Donald L. Rockwood of the University of Florida worked to develop a seed orchard of selected cypress trees and chose to include “The Senator” by collecting several of its branches for cloning. Those branches were grafted onto root stock, propagated, and grown into this specimen, which was about 40 feet tall when relocated to Big Tree Park and has the exact genetic makeup of the original tree. In a contest with local elementary schools, it was given the name “The Phoenix.”