Talk:List of superlative trees/Archive 1

Archive 1

Article title

"Record-breaking" implies some sort of skill or sport, which is not applicable to trees. I suggest that we move the article to List of superlative trees, which seems more general, and also obeys WP:LISTNAME. Shall I perform the rename? —hike395 (talk) 05:36, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

 Done -- no one said anything, so I went ahead and performed the move and fixed the redirects. —hike395 (talk) 01:42, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Height of Centurion and Brummit Fir

Centurion

The Forestry Tasmania news article from 10/10/2008 with the height "100 –101 metres" was written after the first laser measurement but before the first climb. See this thread:

• http://www.nativetreesociety.org/worldtrees/australia/eucalypt_redemption.htm

BVP = Robert Van Pelt. The first message gives a link to the same Forestry Tasmania article and says "My friends Brett Mifsud and Tom Greenwood will be climbing and verifying the height on Thursday.". Then, see the fifth message from Oct 22 2008: "The tree ended up being 99.6 m tall". See also Michael Taylor's site:

• http://www.landmarktrees.net/tash.html

"99.6 m ... Direct measurement by Tom Greenwood confirmed later by Steve Sillett." 99.6 m also appears in this article by Mifsud:

• http://www.forestry.org.au/news/articlefiles/1906-The%20Effect%20of%20the%20Black%20Saturday%20Bushfires%20on%20Victoria%27s%20tallest%20trees.pdf

The correct height was also at www.gianttrees.com.au maintained by Forestry Tasmania, but for some reason the site is not working currently. Conclusion: the correct height according to the most recent tape measurement is 99.6 m.

Brummit Fir

99.4 m is from 1998. The most recent measurements (both tape and laser) from 2010-2011 gave 327.3 ft = 99.76 m. See:

• http://www.ents-bbs.org/viewtopic.php?f=114&t=2594

In the message #6, Michael Taylor explains the discrepansy: the tree has not grown (the top is dead, indeed) but the average ground level has been defined better, the latter being often the biggest error source in precise height measurements. The same explanation appears on Taylor's www-site, too:

• http://www.landmarktrees.net/douglas.html

See also Mario Vaden's site:

• http://www.mdvaden.com/doerner_fir.shtml

Conclusion: the correct height according to the most recent measurements is 99.76 m. Krasanen (talk) 12:22, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Tallest trees

The list of the tallest tree species is of the trees "accepted as the tallest reliably measured specimens". Cupressus cashmeriana should not be in this list. According to "A Natural History of Conifers" by Farjon, 95 m was a "crude measurement". I would also remove Petersianthus quadrialatus as I have not seen any information about the measuring method. These two species could be added to the list of other very tall trees without reliable measurements. Many of the measurements in this "80 m and even taller" list are very suspicious, e.g. 87-metre Ulmus mexicana (source: Arboles tropicals de Mexico). Only 88.9 m for Araucaria hunsteinii should be fairly reliable; according to Gray (1975) it was measured by a climber carrying a steel tape to the top. Krasanen (talk) 16:20, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I removed Cupressus cashmeriana from the list but left Petersianthus. Krasanen (talk) 13:55, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Centurion

In Tasmania's big & tall tree register, Centurion's height has been updated. The former height was 99.6 m, the most recent measurement gave 99.8 m. See http://gianttrees.com.au/index.php/meet-the-giants/tassies-tallest-trees

Brett Mifsud confirmed the new measurement to me by e-mail: "the updated 99.8 is the correct number (in fact 99.82 was the exact figure!) Meaning it has grown about 22cm in a few years since it was first measured". Krasanen (talk) 17:30, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Tallest section

I would have some corrections for the tallest tree list. First, the introduction says: "Historical records of fallen trees measured prostrate on the ground are considered to be somewhat more reliable, of which some exceed 150 meters." Where comes that "some exceed 150 meters" from? The only reference I know is from Hartesveldt, R. J. et al. (1975) for giant sequoias:

"Triangulation was crude at best and might better be called guesswork. Fallen trees should have been another story, but were not. It is beyond comprehension that fallen specimens could be so inaccurately measured; many works reported the "Father of the Forest" in the Calaveras Grove to be 450 ft long as it lay on the ground—140 ft longer than the tallest specimens measured by modern surveying instruments. There are several early reports that the tallest sequoias approached 600 ft, and one Londoner even predicted that specimen trees, if undisturbed, would eventually reach 50 ft in diameter and 1000 ft in height"

http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/science/hartesveldt/chap1.htm

As most of giant sequoia's original area remains unlogged, the heights of 450 ft and more should be considered impossible. Thus, I would remove the sentence stating that the historical measurements of fallen trees would be more reliable.

Then, the list should show "only currently standing specimens". Now there are at least two trees not anymore standing: noble fir (89.9 m) and klinki pine (89 m).

For noble fir, see the message by Van Pelt: http://www.ents-bbs.org/viewtopic.php?f=235&t=5220 : "The noble fir is dead, and the tallest I know of now (measured this past August) is 264.1 feet."

The measurement of 89-m klinki pine was done in 1941. The tallest trees in the site were harvested long ago. Reference: Gray, B. (1975): "Size composition and regeneration of Araucaria stands in New Guinea". Sorry, if the confusion was caused by my message on 18 March 2015 (above).

There are two alpine ashes in the list: 10. and 12. I would remove 10. as 12. is given by http://gianttrees.com.au/ . There are also two karris: 16. and 30. Krasanen (talk) 21:23, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Done. As proposed above.Krasanen (talk) 09:59, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Height measurements in Borneo

Someone has removed the height measurements of the tallest tropical trees: Koompassia excelsa 85,76 m to Shorea gibbosa 81.11m because the source was "unreliable" according to him. The tape measurements by Roman Dial, Brett Mifsud & Tom Greenwood in 2007 are much cited and has been accepted in scientific literature.

On the contrary, the measurement of the "94.1-metre" tree in Danum is not reliable! The source is reliable but the method not. The tree has been measured by LiDAR that measures the vertical distance between a canopy point and the ground directly under the canopy point. It is easy to understand that if the tree is growing on a slope and leaning over the downslope (as the trees growing on a slope usually are) the ground point below the the top is not the tree base but a ground point below the tree base. The LiDAR-measured trees should always be verified by laser or tape. I guess the tree is less than 90 m. That the measurement was done with LiDAR, is clearly said here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/11/tallest-tropical-trees-malaysia-borneo-laser-study/. See also Michael Taylor's opinion here (messages #8 and 9): http://www.ents-bbs.org/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=7860.

They don't even know which species it is. They say: "The tree is in the genus Shorea, though the exact species has yet to be determined." So it is hugely speculative to list 94.1-metre Shorea faguetiana as there are number of species capable to attain such heights (as the measurements by Dial et al. show) and the measuring method is not reliable.Krasanen (talk) 10:30, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I restored the measurements in Tawau Hills Park by Roman Dial, Brett Mifsud & Tom Greenwood. I referred to the first trip report (at Native Tree Society, NTS) and a scientific book adopting these measurements. Before you remove these measurements as "unreliable", please consider:

• The measurement method is the most reliable one: direct tape drop
• R. Dial is a scientist and a member of NTS (that developed the sine method that is today considered as the most reliable method after direct tape drop, see Tree height measurement)
• B. Mifsud has measured many of the top eucalypts accepted in these lists
• If you ask any of the most famous tree measurers (like M. Taylor or S. Sillett) they will say these measurements are absolutely reliable
• M. Taylor listed these trees in his landmarktrees.net before he shut down the site. Krasanen (talk) 22:02, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood my edit summary from 2016. I was not assessing the reliability of the scientist or the measurement. The trip report is a classic self-published source, which is generally considered to be not a reliable source unless peer-reviewed or accepted by other experts. Unfortunately, landmarktrees.net excluded itself from the Internet Archive, so there's no way to verify these heights were listed. The book listed isn't available on Google Books (that doesn't mean the book is unreliable: I just cannot verify it). I looked through R. Dial's Google Scholar page, and didn't see a published paper on the heights. Is there any other secondary source where I can verify the acceptance of these heights? —hike395 (talk) 10:15, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

If you send me your e-mail address I will send you scanned copies from the book. The measurements also appear on many websites, e.g. on the park's own websites:

http://www.etawau.com/PlacesInterest/TawauHillsPark/World_tallest_trees.htm

http://www.sabahparks.org.my/index.php/en/plants-thp

In principle, I agree with you that if there is only a self-published report (like a report on the measurer's own website) the measurements cannot be regarded as reliable. But if the report is on an expert forum and the other expert members don't question its reliability, then the measurements are accepted by other experts! Those measurements in Tawau Hills Park are so widely accepted and the measurers so highly respected in the community that I wonder how anybody could question them.

Another thing: there is now a new report on the new tallest tree in Danum:

http://www.theborneopost.com/2017/03/11/worlds-tallest-tropical-tree-in-danum-valley/

They have tape-measured the tallest tree found with LiDAR and the average of the heights to the highest ground level (90.8 m) and lowest ground level (95.2 m) is 93 m. 93m must be accepted and the species is really S. faguetiana. Krasanen (talk) 13:23, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Measurements of fallen trees

Someone recently added a historical height of an extremely tall fallen E. regnans citing Al Carder. If we start to accept Carder's height claims the list becomes a fairy tale without any basis of reality. Here a citation from Hartesveldt: "The Giant Sequoia of the Sierra Nevada":

"The trees' heights were understandably more difficult to measure than their diameters. Triangulation was crude at best and might better be called guesswork. Fallen trees should have been another story, but were not. It is beyond comprehension that fallen specimens could be so inaccurately measured; many works reported the "Father of the Forest" in the Calaveras Grove to be 450 ft long as it lay on the ground—140 ft longer than the tallest specimens measured by modern surveying instruments."

https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/science/hartesveldt/chap1.htm

3/4 of the original giant sequoia forest remains, so it is very unlikely they would have been remarkably taller in the past. Similarly, there are historical measurements of fallen eastern white pines (Pinus strobus) 90m in height, about 50% more than any accurately measured specimen today. One reason is that when a tall tree falls the top break in small pieces. It is a challenging puzzle to reconstruct the original trunk. Conclusion: old measurements of fallen trees are NOT reliable at all. I recommend to remove the sentences on the 133-150m E. regnans. Krasanen (talk) 20:51, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Karri

The tallest reliable measured (climbed) karri (Eucalyptus diversicolor in SW Western Australia) is 81.5 m at the moment (pers. comm.). Thus, it would make it to the list but unfortunately there is no written reference for it (not online nor an article), so it cannot be added to the list. Krasanen (talk) 07:36, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Shorea faguetiana

94.1 m is the initial measurement from an aircraft with LiDAR. As the source article says, the confirming measurement was made with a tape drop by a climber. "Two height measurements were taken, one is from the top to the ground at the upper slope (90.8 m) and another to the ground at the lower slope (95.2 m) of the tree." According to the tree measuring rules, tree heights should be reported to the average ground level, which is commonly calculated as the mean of the highest and the lowest ground levels. See e.g.:

• Tree_height_measurement
• https://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/content/measuringheight/

Thus 93.0 m is the correct height. The initial measurement from the aircraft should not be accepted! See also section "Height measurements in Borneo" above. Krasanen (talk) 16:35, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Done. Krasanen (talk) 17:30, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Tallest species of trees, not tallest trees

Greetings,

Someone on Instagram used this article to falsely claim that the largest kauri tree is the "third-largest tree in the world"--it is not. The third-largest tree is a sequoia. The lede needs to clarify (for people that just don't get it) that this is a list of the tallest measured trees by species, not by individual trees.Ryoung122 14:38, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Dinizia excelsa

An 88-meter-tall tree of Dinizia excelsa has been found in the Amazon forest (The Amazon's new tallest tree is 50% taller than previous tallest tree). It should be listed in the table of the tallest trees. Petr Karel (talk) 13:20, 16 September 2019 (UTC)