The Dry Tree (also called the Tree Solitary) is a legendary tree described in medieval travel literature and romances. It is recorded as early as the travels of the Venetian explorer Marco Polo, who located it somewhere in northern Persia.
Description and Legend
According to Marco Polo's account (Il Milione, c. 1298), the Dry Tree was reportedly the only tree to be found within hundreds of kilometres of desert. Polo described it as a large tree bearing green leaves on one side and white leaves on the other; for this reason, some scholars have suggested it may have been a plane tree. According to legend, the Dry Tree marked the exact site of a great battle between Alexander the Great and King Darius. It remains uncertain whether this "great battle" refers to the Battle of Issus or the Battle of Gaugamela, and the purported location—somewhere in Khorasan, near the border with present-day Turkmenistan—cannot be confirmed, because Darius had already been assassinated by the time Alexander reached those regions.
In the 14th-century Travels of Sir John Mandeville, the Dry Tree is said to have remained lifeless since the crucifixion of Christ, with the prophecy that it would flower afresh when "a prince of the west side of the world should sing a mass beneath it." Legends of Alexander the Great also claim that he found the phoenix—a mythical bird able to resurrect itself—in the Dry Tree's branches.
Later Accounts
The Bavarian adventurer Johannes Schiltberger (c. 1380–c. 1440) reported the tree and compared it to the Oak of Mamre, stating that Muslims called it "Kurrutherek" or "Sirpe"—the latter being close to the Turco-Persian word for "cyperus." The Spanish ambassador Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo placed the tree at Tabriz.
Real-World Parallels
Although the story is legendary, isolated trees do exist in reality. The Tree of Ténéré in Niger was an isolated landmark tree whose nearest neighbor was said to be 400 km away; it was knocked down by a truck driver in 1973.
Legacy
The Dry Tree has influenced later literature. It appears in The Well at the World's End by William Morris, where it stands alone in a desert surrounded by poisoned water. In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, the White Tree of Gondor—dry and lifeless throughout centuries of rule by the Stewards, until a sapling is brought by the returning King Aragorn—has been likened to the Dry Tree.
