The petrified forest is an area of open veld scattered with petrified tree trunks up to 34m long and 6m in circumference, which are estimated to be around 260 million years old. The original trees belonged to an ancient group of cone-bearing plants that are known as Gymnospermae, which includes such modern plants as conifers, cycads and welwitschias. Because of the lack of root or branch remnants, it’s thought that the trunks were transported to the site in a flood.