<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/30/global-gigantism-hotspot-tasmanian-tree-standing-at-almost-100m-tallest-in-the-country>
"Australian researchers have documented the tallest and most massive living
trees in Tasmania, a “global hotspot of gigantism in plants”, including 18
examples over 90 metres.
Most of the largest and tallest were
Eucalyptus regnans, commonly known as
mountain ash, including a tree known as “Centurion”, measuring 96 metres,
according to new research in the
Australian Journal of Botany.
Located in the state’s Huon Valley, Centurion was once the world’s second
tallest specimen, behind “Hyperion”, a coastal redwood in California measuring
115.6 metres. But that was before bushfire damage in 2019 cost the mountain ash
almost four metres in height and several rungs on the global ladder.
It is now ranked sixth among the tallest living species, behind the coastal
redwood, a Himalayan cypress, sitka spruce, douglas fir and a tropical species
from Malaysia, Shorea faguentiana.
This made Australia, and especially Tasmania, a “global hotspot of gigantism in
plants”, according to co-author Dr David Bowman, a professor of fire science at
the University of Tasmania with a background in eucalypt ecology.
Bowman said Tasmanian eucalypts were the “kings and queens of the forest” that
were achieving “the physiological limit of what a giant tree can be”.
They were able to reach their enormous size – in height and mass – due to
Tasmania’s “cool nights, beautiful growing conditions in the day, an abundance
of moisture”, and had grown over hundreds of years without disturbance.
Most of the 25 tallest trees in the state ranged in age between 320 and 500
years old, and according to the paper, they towered above the tallest known
trees in other states."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
