The 16 Most Beautiful Trees in the World

There are plenty of reasons to love trees: they help produce the oxygen we breathe, they provide shelter from the sun on a hot day; they’re the perfect home for many different kinds of animal. Here’s one more reason: some of them look downright amazing.

We admit that some of these aren’t technically trees (the wisteria is a vine; the rhododendron is a bush, and the baobab is actually related to grass plants). But we couldn’t bear to leave them out of this list — they’re just so wonderful to look at.

A 125-year-old rhododendron, Canada

A 144-year-old wisteria, Japan

Trees twisted by strong winds, New Zealand

A Japanese maple tree, Oregon, USA

A moss-covered southern beech tree, Oregon, USA

Cherry trees in bloom, Germany

The Angel Oak Tree, South Carolina

Delonix regia, Brazil

Dragon blood trees, Yemen

A tunnel formed from maple trees, Oregon, USA

Rainbow eucalyptus, Hawaii

Jacaranda trees, South Africa

Oak Alley, South Carolina

Baobab trees, Madagascar

An alley of beech trees, Northern Ireland

The third largest tree in the world (a giant sequoia), California