Under US law, plants can't own property. But every rule has its exceptions.

About an hour from Atlanta, in Athens (where I started to seriously question whether I was driving through the States or Europe) there's a tree that owns itself. According to legend, in the early 1800s, a local university professor named William Jackson really wanted to protect his beloved oak tree after his death. So he drew up a deed transferring the land to the plant. And for several decades, everyone just forgot about it. Until 1890, when the whole situation surfaced in local newspapers.

After the publication, residents were so moved by the story that they unconditionally began to believe the tree actually owned itself. The city administration then weighed in, saying that while this doesn't exactly line up with the law, we can't go against public opinion. Although no one ever actually saw the deed itself. Researchers lean toward the theory that it was lost, if it ever existed at all.

In 1942, a storm knocked the tree down, and the spot sat empty for four years until a girls' gardening club decided to plant a replacement there. Some Athens residents at the time had been growing trees from seeds of the original oak. They transplanted one of them to the historic location. Even a pastor came to say a prayer. The newcomer was declared the son of the self-owning tree, and they began to believe the rights were inherited.

By the way, this isn't the only case like this. A similar story happened in Alabama, but it started later and there have been more generations since then.