Well, one of them anyway.  It’s hard to argue against the great redwoods, as well as many other beautiful trees.  The bark on the rainbow eucalyptus is most likely the most beautiful bark of any tree ... certainly any I’ve seen.  Yes, this bark is real, and these colors are really there.  How well they show up depends on many things. 

This is an image I took in 2007 ... a location I try and shoot every time I’m in Maui. As you drive the Road to Hana, you’ll come around a curve on the road 15 miles past Mama’s Fish House, and there this stand of beautiful trees awaits you.  The intensity of the colors in the bark depend on weather, (wet is the best, I’ve never been lucky enough to be there when it was raining), as well as the light.  This shot was taken around five in the afternoon, and some overcast conditions softened the light as well.  The long horizontal branch has always intrigued me but on this particular trip the light and conditions were such that I was able to finally capture enough of the color of the tree bark to provide viewers some idea of how beautiful these trees are.

Nothing special about the setup ... in fact this was taken from the side of the road.  I’ve used some local adjustments in Lightroom to darken and desaturate the grass a little, as well as some localized burning and dodging.  I’ve printed this up to 60” wide ... it’s definitely one of those images where bigger is better.

I posted another version of this a few months ago, but recently decided there was too much saturation making the image look kind of phony.  I enjoy the softness and subtlety of the colors in this version.