Centuries-old cotton tree, a national symbol for decades, felled by storm in Sierra Leone

DAKAR, Senegal — Torrential rains in Sierra Leone’s capital felled the centuries-old Cotton Tree, a national treasure whose loss has left “a gap” in people’s hearts, the country’s President Julius Maada Bio said Thursday. “There is no stronger symbol of our national story than the Cotton Tree, a physical embodiment of where we come from as a country,” Bio told the Associated Press. “Nothing in nature lasts forever, so our challenge is to rekindle, nurture, and develop that powerful African spirit for so long represented,.’ Standing 70 meters tall and 15 meters wide, the roughly 400 year-old tree has been Sierra Leone’s national symbol for decades. For Sierra Leone, the loss is comparable to the fire that destroyed Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral in 2019, said Zebek, the government’s press agency.