The earth became suitable for life due to the oxygen released by flora. Trees are the “lungs” of the planet, which ones are the tallest? Until recently, the honorary title of the tallest tree in the world was borne by the sequoia, but the ranking changed due to the discovery of the giant baobab on the planet.
The tallest trees on the planet
Australia, America and Africa are the countries where the most tall trees On the Earth. Among them are baobab, giant sequoia and impressive eucalyptus. There used to be a “Centurion”, it reached 189 m in height. Now there is a tree of the same name, but smaller in size. First representative flora from evergreen conifers, which was awarded the title of the tallest tree on earth - sequoia. The huge tree reaches a height of 115 m, the diameter of the trunk is 4.84 meters.
The age is 700 years, while its brothers live up to 4000 years. This tallest tree in the world is not the only one that deserves the title of record holder. Previously, Helios was considered the tallest specimen of the sequoia, but gave way after the discovery of Hyperion. He has every chance to catch up and overtake his competitor: the top of the Helios crown grows by 2 inches every year.
Tallest trees in the world
The evergreen sequoia would have retained its status - the most a big tree on the planet, if at the end of the last century biologists had not found the baobab tree, whose record height reaches 189 m. The highest are:
- Sequoia Icarus with a height of 113.14 m, a diameter of 3.78 m. It received its name because of the red, dead top of the crown. Located in the Redwoods, a tributary of Redwood Creek, California.
- The Stratosphere Giant was discovered in 2000 in Humboldt Park and continues to grow. The tree has now reached 112.34 m. It grows in Humboldt, Rockefeller Forest, California.
- The National Geographic Sequoia was the tallest tree until 1995. Its height is 112.71 m and its diameter is 4.39 m. The huge tree is located in Redwood Creek, California.
- Sequoia Orion - height 112.63 meters, exact diameter 4.33 meters. Its homeland is California, USA; due to the favorable climate, almost all sequoias are located here.
- Lauralin tree (Humboldt, California) - height 112.62 m, diameter 4.54 m.
- Rockefeller is a Californian sequoia with a height of 112.60 m, the exact diameter has not yet been established.
- Paradoxically, the tree is located in Rockefeller Forest in northern California. The height of the crown reaches 112.56 m, the diameter is 3.9 m.
- Mendocino tree in Montgomery Woods. It was considered first in the ranking of tall trees in the period from 1996 to 2000 - 112.2 m, diameter 4.19 m. For a long time the location was not made public for safety.
Deciduous
The largest deciduous trees:
- Giant eucalyptus. It grows in the forests of Tasmania, inaccessible to people. Now the largest tree on the planet of this species - Centurion - reaches 101 meters in the air and is still growing.
- Fir. The height of the tree is up to 100 m, but there are few such specimens of coniferous trees in nature.
- Baobab is the widest tree in diameter. This plant does not reach records in height, but it has no equal in width - up to 9 m.
In Russia
The country is rich in representatives of mammoth trees:
- Sequoia in Yalta, in the Nikitinsky Botanical Garden, which, although far from the family of Californian record holders, continues to grow. Now its height reaches 38 m.
- Nordmann fir in the Krasnodar region. This tree with a straight trunk can grow up to 100 m.
- Norway spruce is common in Russia and the right conditions grows up to 60 m in height.
- Another huge tree Siberian cedar, such trees live up to 500 years and can grow up to 40 m.
All types of trees are genetically programmed to stop their growth when they reach a certain height, age, or crown density. Thus, the tree accumulates its internal resources for regeneration. However, in addition to “heredity,” the growth of a tree is limited by many other factors. For a long time, scientists considered the main aspect influencing the ability of trees to reach gigantic sizes average annual temperature in their growing area. Having analyzed the conditions in which they grow tallest trees in the world, scientists now believe that seasonal variations in temperature, altitude and proximity to the ocean also play a significant role.
Where are the tallest trees in the world?
Nine specimens from the list of the tallest trees in the world with a height of more than 90 meters are stationed in Oceania, south australia and in western North America with an average annual temperature 7-15.4 degrees and seasonal variability 7-19.7 degrees. Data climatic conditions are observed on 2.1% of the earth's land, but trees do not reach everywhere gigantic sizes. Another 20 tree colossi with a height of 80-90 meters are located in tropical forests archipelagos between Oceania and Australia with approximately identical temperature conditions. All groups of the tallest trees on Earth grow at a distance of 3900-5500 km from the equator and at an altitude of 50-2700 meters above sea level. The distance between the localizations of the most major representatives flora in Australia does not exceed 2700 km, in North America— 1400 km. The largest trees grow in climates with an average annual temperature of 7 degrees.
Interesting to know! Sequoia Sequoia sempervirens or Taxodium sempervirens – the most giant look trees on Earth, reaching more than 100 m in height with a maximum age of about 3.5 thousand years. Sequoia - tree coniferous and belongs to the cypress family. The natural habitat is the Pacific coast of North America.
Temperature conditions in most parts Western Europe coincide with the parameters of the regions where the tallest trees in the world are located, but in Eurasia most of vegetation is far from huge size. Even those imported once exotic breeds, which have taken root in Europe, are always much taller than local tree species.
Interesting to know! In 2006, deep in the forest national reserve Redwood (California), the world's tallest tree, 115 meters high, was discovered - a sequoia, named Hyperion. Its location is hidden from the public so that those who want to see the giant tree do not disturb the ecological balance of the area, since the main problem vegetation cover Earth - significant.
Giant Sequoia in Sequoia National Park, USA
The biomass of forests, along with their height, is also a subject of active study by scientists. Wood is a kind of “storehouse” of carbon, which saturates the Earth’s atmosphere with its dioxide. Although tree height is a more important biological parameter than its biomass, scientists tend to link these characteristics together. It is hypothesized that trees with high biomass densities are unable to reach phenomenal heights.
Interesting to know! In addition to the sequoia, there is another gigantic representative in the cypress tree family - the sequoia dendron Sequoia gigantea, called the mammoth tree or giant sequoia. It is more squat than the sequoia, and the diameter of its trunk is much thicker - about 10 meters. The biomass of sequoiadendrons sometimes reaches 1000 cubic meters.
How does the ocean affect the height of a tree?
The altitude of its location relative to the level of the world's oceans also plays a special role in a tree reaching excess size. In tropical forests below sea level, tree biomass and growth vary, but are comparable to the size and volume of individuals in high altitude areas—the low pressure of mountainous regions does not inhibit tree growth. For example, an 89-meter Araucaria growing at 1050 m below sea level and a high-mountain specimen of the same species with high biomass in the forests of Papua New Guinea have identical height. The location of the sequoia Taxodium mucronatum with a maximum trunk diameter on Earth of 11.5 meters is the tropical forests of Mexico at 1550 meters below sea level.
Interesting to know! In mountainous areas, tree crowns are more columnar, in tropical forests they are closer to spreading. Trees with a pointed or conical crown are always much taller than their relatives with an umbrella-shaped deciduous tent.
Alpine forested areas- habitat of the tallest trees in the world
It would seem that the growth of a tree is affected by humidity and soil properties, but the latter Scientific research Scientists in Finland show that the tallest trees grow better in dry regions of the Earth than in humid areas or on mountain tops. The amount of precipitation is also not a fundamental factor, since trees can accumulate moisture due to the morning fogs characteristic of the sea coast.
Interesting to know! Among the tallest trees in the world, 44% are conifers, 13% are eucalyptus. Giants of the tropics are shorter than their relatives from South-East Asia, but have large area crowns
The close location of the tallest trees in the world to the sea coast is usually associated with a sufficient level of soil moisture and fog that falls as dew on the foliage of the tree. This allows them to accumulate enough moisture necessary for growth. But in fact, the more significant point in the proximity of the ocean is the formation of an acceptable temperature regime for the growth of the tree.
The tallest trees on Earth are sequoias, which grow on the coast. Pacific Ocean
All 29 of the world's arboreal colossi with a height of more than 80 m, which were studied during scientific research, are located no further than 100 km from the ocean in windless regions. Most of them grow literally a few kilometers from coastline, achievable by sea breezes generating lower daytime temperatures.
Why does a giant tree need fire?
Australian giant eucalyptus trees are among the tallest flowering trees on Earth. Out of 100 thousand tree species, only 50 species, which is 0.005% of their total number, reach 70 meters or more in height. Although most of these green giants live on the Pacific coast of North America and Borneo, 13 subspecies have settled in southern and eastern Australia. It is here, on the Green Continent, on the island of Tasmania and in the east of the Victoria Desert, that the natural habitat of the royal eucalyptus, or Eucalyptus regnans, is located. In total, six of the tallest trees in the world have been recorded on the Australian mainland and its surrounding islands, of which one specimen in Tasmania has a “height” of 99.6 meters, another in desert regions is 114.3 meters.
Eucalyptus regnans (Eucalyptus regnans), native to Australia, can reach a height of more than 100 meters, making it one of the tallest tree species in the world
Rainbow Eucalyptus - the only kind from the genus of eucalyptus, growing in Northern latitudes. It is often specially grown to drain swampy regions.
In contact with
Everyone has heard about this tree, but few manage to admire it. Despite its enormous popularity, its distribution is limited for a number of reasons. Sequoia is a tree that belongs to the genus of conifers, the cypress family, and the subfamily sequoioideae. Consists of two species: giant and evergreen sequoia. Both of these species grow in North America on the Pacific coast.
Scientists are sure that in the distant past this amazing plant populated everything North hemisphere of our planet. Yours modern name The tree was not received immediately: the British and Americans tried to immortalize their heroes in it. Then a compromise was reached: it was decided to name the tree in honor of the leader of the Cherokee tribe - Sequoyah, who, ironically, called on his people to fight against both the British and the Americans.
Evergreen and tallestToday this plant grows only in a small area in Northern California and Southern Oregon, on a narrow coastal strip. The evergreen sequoia is a tree that is the tallest existing on Earth in our time. Usually its height ranges from 60 to 90 meters, but there were also specimens taller than 100 m, and one of them even reached 113 meters. Most of them grow in Redwood National Park, on the mountain slopes facing the ocean and foothill valleys.
The sequoia trunk has a very thick and fibrous bark. While the plant is young, it branches along the entire length of the trunk, but with age, the lower branches are lost, and only a dense crown is formed at the top. The undergrowth in such a forest develops poorly due to lack of lighting. Despite the fact that an adult tree produces a lot of seeds, only a small part of them germinates, and even this part is very difficult - there is not enough sunlight. Due to such slow reproduction, the sequoia (the tree was previously intensively cut down) was on the verge of extinction. Today, the main places where this grows are taken under protection, and their barbaric felling has been stopped.
The territory of this huge North American reserve is the main repository of what is rightfully considered the greatest living organism. In terms of size and life expectancy, there are no equals in nature. The existence of the giant sequoia is calculated not in tens or even hundreds of years, but in millennia - it can live up to 4000 years. for such a long period grows in height up to 95 meters, and in diameter grows to 10 meters or more. - this is the name of sequoia - a tree (its photo has gone around the whole world), which has already lived for 4000 years and continues to grow, today its weight is 2995796 kg.
The tallest tree growing today is the Stratospheric Giant. It is located in Redwood National Park. In 2002, its height was 112.56 m.
The tallest tree on Earth was the Dyerville Giant. When it collapsed, it was possible to determine that its height was 113.4 m, and it lived for about 1600 years.
Currently, 15 sequoias have a height of more than 110 meters, and 47 trees are already approaching the 105 m mark. So, perhaps, the Dyerville Giant's record will be broken. They say that in 1912 a sequoia tree with a height of 115.8 m was cut down. But this fact has not been proven.
The most voluminous sequoia is a tree named General Sherman. Its volume has already exceeded 1487 cubic meters. m. They claim that in 1926 a tree with a volume of 1794 cubic meters was cut down. m. But it is no longer possible to verify this.
The General Sherman Tree is located in Sequoia National Park in the USA, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains (California).
This tree is also the largest living creature on the planet.
Height giant tree General Sherman is more than 83 meters, the circumference of its trunk is more than 24 meters, the circumference of the crown is as much as 33 meters.
In the nineteenth century, the area in which it grows famous tree, explorer John Muir called it the “Giant Forest” when he discovered giant sequoias. The name of this part of the park, "Giant Forest", remains to this day. Many tourists describe the General Sherman tree, which is striking in its size, as a red-orange “rock”, the top of which is impossible to see.
Tourists specially come to the park to see the General Sherman tree, named after the hero civil war General William Sherman, and take a photo. Next to the sequoia they seem so fragile and small.
For a long time it was believed that the General Sherman tree was over three thousand years old, but latest research determined its exact age - it is exactly two thousand years. This means that this is not the oldest tree in the world.
The oldest tree in the world, special type The California pine was 4,484 years old when it was cut down in 1965. Sequoia trees, which were about 3,000 years old, were also cut down. It is believed that 5,000 trees still exist on Earth.
In the winter of 2006, the General Sherman tree lost part of its crown, the largest branch of the tree fell off, the diameter of which was about two meters and the length was about 30 meters
When the branches fell to the ground, the fence around the tree and the road leading to it were destroyed. Even after this, General Sherman's tree did not lose its status largest tree on the planet.
There is a special path leading to General Sherman's tree, and even people with disabilities can see this miracle. At the end of the path there are brick tiles, which show where the roots of the tree reach.
Every year the diameter of the giant's trunk grows almost 1.5 cm. The General Sherman tree is still growing and, according to the website National Park State of California, annually adds enough wood to fill a five or six-room house.
It is difficult to surprise a person with tall buildings or towers; huge structures are growing all over the world. Concrete slabs and reinforcement make up the bulk of these giants. But what nature gives us always arouses curiosity and admiration. Gigantic, hundred-meter trees fascinate at first sight. Standing in front of such a “living being,” we feel dwarfed, but at the same time we feel proud of the grandeur and beauty of our environment.
All leading places among the tallest trees are occupied by coniferous trees redwoods. They grow mainly in the southern United States. The redwood or evergreen sequoia is the state symbol of California. In addition to the title of the tallest tree, it is one of the most ancient plants; their appearance on earth dates back to more than 200 million years ago. The tree received its name in honor of the leader of the Indian tribe Sequoia. Perhaps they became the prototype for the huge trees from another planet from the movie Avatar.
Over the past 15 years, the first place has constantly passed from one tree to another. As a result, today the undisputed winner is a tree called. The height of the giant is 115.5 m, its age reaches about 750–800 years. There is an opinion that the growth of sequoia per year increases by an average of 25 cm. Considering that the lifespan of such a giant reaches 4 thousand years, Hypereon can safely be called a young tree that still has time to grow and grow.
The next champion in height stands next to the previous one. Sequoia called Helios. The height of the trunk is 114.6 m. Before the discovery of Hypereon, it was Helios who held the title of the tallest tree. These trees take first place not only in growth, they are better than other plants in purifying the air from carbon dioxide.
In third place he confidently settled down, or rather, stood tall Icarus. This is also a sequoia growing next to Hyperon and Helios. The location of almost all giant trees in California is classified. Preserving the infrastructure and not disturbing the ecology around protected natural monuments is the main goal of the parks. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the number of these trees declined sharply, the main reason being human factor. Building materials made from sequoia were extremely popular; products made from it are durable, lightweight and completely resistant to rot. Scroll chemical substances in wood is so large that it repels all pests, including termites. Nowadays, there are about 500 giant trees left.
Stratosphere Giant- until 2010, it had the title of the tallest tree in the world. Located in California. The latest measurements recorded a height of 113.11 meters. It is worth noting that all types of sequoia do not suffer from fire; the tree bark is fire-resistant. Due to the burnt area around the sequoia, Sun rays provide rapid growth to young shoots.
Fifth place is taken by sequoia with long name National Geographic Society. The height of the tree is 112.71 m. Diameter – 4.39. By the way, the largest, heaviest and most voluminous tree in the sequoia family is General Sherman. At 2,500 years old and weighing about 1,900 tons, the circumference of the trunk measures more than 30 meters.
Orion. Sixth place. A huge sequoia grows close to several other giants, but is twice as tall. For 2012, the height is 112.63 m. Age about 1500 years. All representatives of the sequoia species can rightfully be called long-livers; the record holder is a tree with an age of 4484 years. The sequoia, cut down in 1965, today attracts thousands of tourists, shocked by the thickness of the trunk and the abundance of growth rings.
Lauralin, the seventh tallest tree. Location - California. The height reaches 112.62 meters. Among its representatives it is one of the youngest. Although it is fundamentally incorrect to call a sequoia that has reached more than 100 meters young. "Living Fossil" or " mammoth tree“, these are two words that characterize these trees. It has been proven that giants grew back in Jurassic period and perhaps dinosaurs rested under them. Each growing tree has its own ecosystem - birds nest, lichen and other vegetation grow, animals and insects live.
In ninth place is another representative of this genus Paradox. It grows in the same park as Rockefeller and is no less popular. The height of the tree is 112.56 m. It was one of the first to be discovered; it got its name because of the contrast: mature coniferous trees growing nearby look dwarf compared to Paradox.
Sequoia closes the top ten list. Mendocino- the most damaged tree due to the influx of curious tourists. Now it is under protection; it is impossible to see the tree up close.
We are convinced that all honorable places belong to the redwoods, but if we exclude them from the list as the absolute champions, where do our eyes turn? In difficult conditions, in places where they raged Forest fires, on the island of Tasmania, grows the largest deciduous tree- regal eucalyptus, with a sonorous name Centurion. The age of this giant is more than 400 years, and its height is 101 m. The island is the owner of several eucalyptus trees of similar height, next after Centurion is the giant Icarus's Dream, reaching 97m. Eucalyptus trees, for their ability to absorb and evaporate more than a hundred liters of water per day, are called “pump trees.” The tallest flowering tree can be seen without bark, since the rapid growth of the tree in breadth leads to its shedding.
Some sources indicate several more species of equally huge trees, but descriptions of them are extremely scant. Thus, in the Columbia National Forest in Washington, the Noble Fir grows, reaching 85 m. And in the state of Idaho, mountain pine grows with a height of 70 m.
In our country big variety forests with different climatic zone. Can Russia boast of tall trees? On the territory of the Yalta Botanical Garden and in Krasnodar region The same famous sequoias grow, but the longest of them is 38m.
In forests Krasnodar region, on the southeastern part Black Sea coast, growing Nordmann fir, tall trees with a straight trunk, sometimes reaching 70–80m. Thanks to the long lower branches, they resemble a dark green pyramid. The age reaches no more than 600 years, they mainly die from insect pests.
Slightly taller, normal height is 60 to 100m. An evergreen, frost-resistant tree, grows very slowly, lives up to 600–700 years.
Often meets spruce, reaching sizes up to 50–60 m. The most widespread distribution is all Northern part our country. It lives a little less than its evergreen representatives, on average about 250–300 years. In the list of our tall trees, we should also note the Siberian cedar (slightly smaller than the others, but an unusually beautiful and spreading tree), beech, ash, birch (the height of some specimens reaches 30–35 m). Each of the listed trees evokes pride and calls for responsibility, careful attitude to our nature.
2016.02.12 by
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