Torrential rains in Sierra Leone’s capital have felled the centuries-old Cotton Tree, a national treasure whose loss has left “a gap” in people’s hearts, President Julius Maada Bio says. The roughly 400-year-old tree, which had stood 70 metres (230 feet) tall and 15 metres (50 feet) wide, has been Sierra Leone’s national symbol for decades.

The Cotton Tree was an important landmark in the West African country, which was founded by formerly enslaved Africans returning from the United States. Locals say when the returnees arrived by boat in the late 1700s, they gathered under its branches to offer prayers in their new home, which they called Freetown. The tree went on to appear on the country’s banknotes and be celebrated in children’s nursery rhymes. It was also visited by Queen Elizabeth II to mark Sierra Leone’s independence from British colonial rule in 1961.