Thursday, April 23, 2009

World largest trees

Certified list of largest trees and tallest trees in the world.

Tallest trees refer to the height of the tree and largest trees refer to the volume of its trunk. Here are the world's 5 tallest and 4 largest trees.

Tallest Trees in the World

  1. Coast Redwood



    Hyperion, a Coast Redwood in California, at 115.5 m tall the tallest tree in the world, found in 2006. Hyperion is the name of a coast redwood tree in Northern California that has been confirmed to measure 115.55 m (379.1 feet), which ranks it as the world's tallest known living tree. Despite its great height, Hyperion is not the largest known coast redwood; that distinction belongs to the Lost Monarch tree.
  2. Coast Douglas Fir



    Coast Douglas-fir is a very tall tree, the second-tallest conifer in the world (after Coast Redwood). Trees 60-75 m (200-250 feet) or more in height and 1.5-2 m (5-6 feet) in diameter are common in old growth stands, and heights of 100-120 m (300-400 feet) were reported by early lumbermen. The tallest living specimen is the “Doerner Fir”, (previously known as the Brummit fir), 100.3 m tall, at East Fork Brummit Creek in Coos County, Oregon. The stoutest is the “Queets Fir”, 4.85 m diameter, in the Queets River valley, Olympic National Park, Washington. It commonly lives more than 500 years and occasionally more than 1,000 years
  3. Australian Mountain-ash



    Eucalyptus regnans, known variously by the common names Mountain Ash, Victorian Ash, Swamp Gum, Tasmanian Oak or Stringy Gum, is a species of Eucalyptus native to southeastern Australia, in Tasmania and Victoria. It is known to attain heights over 295 feet (90 meters) and is described as the tallest of the flowering plants.
  4. Sitka Spruce



    The Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis) is a large coniferous evergreen tree growing to 50-70 m tall, exceptionally to 90 m tall, and with a trunk diameter of up to 5 m. It is by far the largest species of spruce and the third tallest conifer species in the world (after Coast Redwood and Coast Douglas-fir). It acquires its name from the community of Sitka, Alaska.
  5. Giant Sequoia



    This Giant Sequoia or Sequoiadendron giganteum is 94.9 m (311.4 ft) tall located in Redwood Mountain Grove, Kings Canyon National Park, California, United States

Largest Trees in the World

The top four species measured so far are:

  1. Giant Sequoia



    General Sherman is the name of this Giant Sequoia. It is one of the tallest Giant Sequoia trees in the world with a height of about 275 feet (84.8 meters). Although not the tallest tree in the world (coast redwood being taller), it is the biggest in terms of volume, making it the world's largest known single organism by volume. As of 2002, the volume of its trunk measured about 1487 cubic meters. The tree is located in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park in the US. The tree is believed to be between 2,300 and 2,700 years old. It was named after General William Tecumseh Sherman, American Civil War leader in 1879. Measuring over 115 meters, the Hyperion in Redwood National park is currently the world's tallest tree.
  2. Coast Redwood



    The second largest volume tree is the Del Norte Titan, discovered June 1998 in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, California. This tree has an estimated stem volume of 1044.7 cubic meters and is 93.57 m tall with a dbh of 7.22 m.
  3. Western Red Cedar



    Western red cedar is a large tree, to 50-60 m tall and 3 m (exceptionally 6 m) trunk diameter. The Quinault Lake red cedar (left) is the largest known western red cedar in the world with a wood volume of 500 cubic meters. It is located near the northwest shore of Lake Quinault north of Aberdeen, Washington.
  4. Kauri Tane Mahuta Tree



    Tane Mahuta, a giant Kauri in the Waipoua Forest of Northland Region, New Zealand. The tree's Maori name means “Lord of the Forest” and is the name of a god in the Maori pantheon. Tāne Mahuta is the most massive kauri known to stand today. It is 51 meters (169 feet) in height, and has a circumference of 13.8 meters (45 feet). There is no proof of the tree's age, but it is estimated to be between 1250 and 2500 years old. The trunk girth is 13.77 m, the trunk height is 17.68 m, the total height is 51.2 m and the trunk volume is 244.5 m3. It is the most famous tree in New Zealand and the oldest.

However, the Alerce Fitzroya cupressoides, as yet un-measured, may well slot in at third or fourth place, Montezuma Cypress Taxodium mucronatum, and Old Lost Monarch and other giants are also likely to be high in the list. The largest angiosperm tree is an Australian Mountain-ash (Eucalyptus regnans) in Tasmania, known as the “Two Towers” tree, with a volume of 430 m³ (15,185 cu ft

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