When the crowns of forest trees close above their heads, every person at least for a moment is aware of all the power of nature, which is expressed in the enormous size of the trees. The largest tree species reinforce this feeling. It is worth considering the largest and most majestic varieties of those, to see for yourself the greatness of the ancient forests that have survived on the planet to this day, and, of course, in need of protection.
In the historical past, forests were even higher; a number of plants significantly exceeded the size of their descendants. Some of the giant plants of the past are present in the forests today, it is worth telling more about this.
Spherical eucalyptus
Eucalyptus trees are not the tallest trees in the world, but they are gaining their first meters very rapidly. By 10 years, it is already quite mature and mature plants with a height of 20-25 meters, the trunk diameter of such a plant reaches a meter.
These are tropical plants that live mainly in the southern hemisphere, in the wild they are present on the New Zealand islands, in Oceania and in Australia, there are more than 700 species. But it is the spherical eucalyptus that turns out to be the largest in practice.
Baobab
Baobab is an African plant that is already recognizable by its appearance, which is ideally suited for life and prosperity in the dry climate of the hot mainland. The height of the tree is from 18 meters, mature trees grow to 22-25 meters. The girth of their trunks can be up to 8 meters! The volume of the tree varies depending on the season. In summer, foliage is dumped and the volume decreases - nature does everything necessary to maintain moisture in the heat.
Determining the age of such plants is problematic, because they do not form annual rings, like other trees. However, the radiocarbon method made it possible to clarify that a tree with a trunk girth of 4.5 meters is 4500 years old. So these plants with their slow growing and growth are very ancient.
Mexican cypress
The same plant is sometimes referred to as Portuguese or Louisiana cypress. His height is 30-40 meters, the shape of the crown is pyramidal, the crown is thick. Mexican cypress is considered one of the most beautiful species of trees on the planet. It can have an impressive thickness of the trunk, in this regard, sometimes breaks all records. So, in the 19th century one of the thickest trunks was measured, and the girth was equated to 17 meters. Verification showed that the tree is 400 years old. In general, cypress can live up to 2 thousand years, and today you can find many individuals with a trunk thickness of 16 meters or more.
Fir
Trees belonging to the pine family are widespread in Russia. Fir is the tallest of them. It can be adjacent to other conifers, or grow along with relatives, reaching a height of 60 meters, with an average of 30-40 meters. The plant lives up to 200 years. Norman fir is the highest of such plants, individual individuals in Krasnodar grow to 80 meters with a longer life - its term reaches 500 years.
Lebanese cedar
The average for this plant is 40-50 meters, although there are larger individuals. The trunk in girth can be 2.5 meters for the Lebanese cedar, it is ribbed and thick. It is amazing that such a large and powerful plant can exist at an altitude of up to 2 km or more, choosing convenient sites for itself on the slope of the Lebanese mountains.
This is an endangered species - in nature there are only 6 groves of natural origin. But the plant fell in love with gardeners of southern Europe, who successfully cultivate it.
Beech
This is a European plant that can be found in the wild as well in North America, Asia - in the temperate zone. There are several varieties of this plant, and in particular - the Mexican beech, which is the largest, reaching a height of 40 meters. At the same time, the trunk has a girth of about 2 meters. Beech is an ancient plant that was a contemporary of the extinction period of dinosaurs - the fossilized parts of beech found in coal deposits can have a period of 65 million years. The beech grows slowly and lives for a long time, is characterized by unpretentiousness, which, obviously, helped him survive.
The highest tree species in the world
The tallest trees in the world are redwoods. Giant plants, whose homeland is the US coast along the Pacific Ocean - relict, long-lived in need of protection, whose age reaches 2 thousand years. Their growth reaches 110 meters. And this plant also presented humanity with its own surprises.Parks were created to preserve and protect them, but in these parks trees began to grow worse, their reproduction practically stopped. When researching what happened, it turned out that in the sequoia's homeland, forests often occur in fires that cannot damage a huge tree, but positively affect its growth and reproduction. Now, parks also do not extinguish fires. And it is also worth noting that at great height the main part of the root system of this plant is at a depth of no more than a meter.
These are the largest trees that grow today on the surface of the planet. In the past, thoughtless deforestation led to the fact that many forest giants disappeared without a trace, but today more and more measures are being taken to protect forest wealth, and the problem is being gradually solved.
