World’s Tallest Hardwood Tree Found in Australia
The world’s tallest known hardwood tree has been found in Tasmania, Australia.
The tree, dubbed Centurion, is a eucalyptus tree (or eucalyptus regnans), standing at 101 meters tall.
Forestry Tasmania managing director Bob Gordon says, “It is the only known standing hardwood tree in the world to be over 100 metres tall”.
Actually, Centurion has broken two records. It is also the tallest flowering plant in the world.
According to some news reports, Centurion is the second tallest tree in the world - second only to this giant redwood. But I beg to differ. I can name 15 redwoods that are taller than Centurion.
But not to take anything away from Centurion. Centurion is a hardwood tree. The giant California redwoods are softwood trees. Also, Centurion is classified as a flowering plant (and the tallest a that!).
Centurion is not the only tall eucalyptus tree to be seen in Australia. Eucalyptus trees are amongst the tallest trees ever recorded. The challenge these days, is to allow them to grow to their full potential without chopping them down.
Centurion, which measures 405 centimeters in diameter, is located about 5 kilometers from Tahune Airwalk, a popular tourist walk through the tree tops. Forestry Tasmania plan to create a boardwalk to Centurion so that the public can view the massive tree.
About the Name “Centurion”
A centurion was a professional officer of the Roman army in charge of 100 soldiers. Well, to be precise, centurions initially commanded a centuria, or “century” of 100 soldiers. Later, they commanded 60 men. Then this number rose to 80 soldiers.
Let’s hope that Centurion (the tree) doesn’t lose the number of trees its in charge of!
Tags: australia, eucalyptus, redwood, trees, world records, world's tallest
October 3rd, 2009 at 2:46 am
450 foot,500 foot tall trees..complete rubbish. Nation Geographic/ the laws of physics have proved that ANY tree can’t grow above a height of about 400 feet (123 meters). The mechanism trees use to pull water from the ground up into their canopy simply doesn’t work above that height. The species of tree that most commonly ‘reaches’ or approaches that height limit is the coast redwood.Period! Other trees can also (coastal douglas fir,Stika spruce,eucaliptus etc.) but the one that most commonly does is sequoia semperviren (coast redwood).
No tree species has been more affected by logging than the coast redwood 98/99% old growth gone! assuming the remaining 1 to 2% are representative of the what was before logging,then based upon 100 meter plus trees know to exist in the world today, it seems obvious Sequoia Semperviren IS the tallest tree in the world.