Photos

For Richard ;)

Yes I do like trees - the Earth's 'lungs' - wonderful things, and I believe well worth an image or two :)

From the net...

'The Oldest Tree known is a Redwood named Eternal God. The tree, found in the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in California, has a height of 238 feet and a diameter of 19.6 feet. It is believed to be 12,000 years old, but this figure is disputed; others believe the tree to be only 7,000 years old, still a world record.

The Most Massive Tree ever known was the "Lindsey Creek Tree", a Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) with a minimum trunk volume of 90,000 cubic feet and a minimum total mass of 3630 tons. The tree blew over in a storm in 1905. The living tree with the greatest mass is "General Sherman", a giant sequoia, Sequoiadendron giganteum, in Sequoia National Park in California. It is 275 feet tall with a girth of 102 feet and 8 inches.

Deepest Roots. The greatest reported depth to which a tree's roots have penetrated is 400 feet by a Wild Fig tree at Echo Caves, near Ohrigstad, Mpumalanga, South Africa.

The Tallest Tree known to have existed is an Australian Eucalyptus at Watts River, Victoria in Australia. It was reported in 1872 to measure 435 feet tall, but probably measured over 500 feet at some point in its life.

The Fastest Growing Tree is an Albizzia falcata in Sabah, Malaysia. In 1974 it was found to have grown 35 feet and 3 inches in 13 months--about 1.1 inches per day.

The Slowest Growing Tree is a White Cedar located on a cliff side in the Great Lakes area of Canada. At 155 years old, it is less than 4 inches tall.

The Most Isolated Tree known is a solitary Norwegian Spruce on Campbell Island in the Pacific. Its nearest companion is over 120 nautical miles away in the Auckland Islands.

The Most Dangerous Tree is the Manchineel Tree, Hippomane mancinella, of the Caribbean coast and the Florida Everglades. This species has ad an evil reputation since the Spanish explorers first feared it in the 16th century. The entire tree exudes an extremely poisonous and caustic sap that was once used as arrow poison. Contact to the skin causes an eruption of blisters, contact to the eye can blind a person, and one bite of the fruit causes blistering and severe pain.

Landowning Tree. In the city of Athens, GA, one of the oldest property owners is a White Oak. The deed dates back to 1820 and says the tree owns the 64 square feet of land on which it grows in addition to owning itself. The deed was granted in the will of Col. William H. Jackson to protect the beloved oak. The original tree blew down during a storm in 1952, but the citizens of Athens planted another, grown from one of the original tree's acorns'.