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http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/zimbabwe/091015/jacaranda-time-zimb abwe

Although the country has long suffered from economic collapse, crime and grime, its raw beauty never fails to impress. This time of year, the Jacaranda trees are a welcome distraction.

Historically, the tallest individual is claimed to be the Ferguson Tree, at 132.6 metres, found in the Watts River region of Victoria in 1871 or 1872. This record is often disputed as unreliable, despite first-hand documentary evidence of it being measured on the ground with surveyor's tape by a senior forestry official (see below). Widespread agreement exists, however, that an exceptionally tall individual was reliably measured at 112.8 metres by theodolite in 1880 by a surveyor, George Cornthwaite, at Thorpdale, Victoria (the tree is known both as the Cornthwaite or Thorpdale Tree). When it was felled in 1881, Cornthwaite remeasured it on the ground by chain at 114.3 metres.[3] The stump was commemorated with an plaque that exists today. That tree was about 1 metre shorter than the world's current tallest living tree, a Coast Redwood, 115.55 metres.

The tallest specimens of this and many other species encountered by early European settlers are now dead as a result of bushfires, logging and advanced age. Few living specimens exceed 90 metres; old records of logged trees make varied claims of extreme heights, but these are difficult to verify today.

Most of those claims come from Victoria. Al Carder, notes that in 1888 a cash reward of 100 pounds was offered there for the discovery of any tree measuring more than 122 metres [400 feet][3]. The fact that such a considerable reward was never claimed is taken as evidence that such large trees did not exist. Carder's historical research, however, revealed that the reward was offered under conditions that made it highly unlikely to be collected. First, it was made in the depths of winter and applied only for a very short time. Next, the tree had to be measured by an accredited surveyor. Since loggers had already taken the largest trees from the most accessible Victorian forests, finding very tall trees then would have demanded an arduous trek into remote wilderness and at considerable altitude. In turn, that meant that searchers also needed the services of experienced bushmen to be able to guide them and conduct an effective search. Only one expedition actually penetrated one of the strongholds of E. regnans at Mount Baw Baw but its search was rendered ineffectual by cold and snow and managed to measure only a single living tree (the New Turkey Tree; 99.4 metres) before appalling conditions forced a retreat, Carder notes.

In 1911, a previously unknown report was discovered: it was written by a licensed surveyor, G.W. Robinson, who had kept his personal forestry records from six decades earlier during the 1850s in the Dandenong Ranges, near Melbourne. Robinson had arranged with loggers to notify him when they found a very tall tree, and noted that every one he measured exceeded 91 metres, the tallest being 104 metres. Robinson noted that the tallest trees were felled first and had no doubt that "some of the trees felled earlier would have measured quite some 400 feet [122 metres]".[3]

Victoria's early State botanist, Ferdinand von Mueller, claimed to have personally measured one tree near the headwaters of the Yarra River at 122 metres. A government surveyor, David Boyle, claimed in 1862 to have measured a fallen tree in a deep gully in the Dandenongs at 119.5 metres, and with a diameter at its broken tip that indicated it might have lost another eight metres of trunk when it broke [128 metres in total].[3]

The tops of the tallest trees are often snapped by wind: allowing for that in estimating an original height, however, presupposes that the break occurred in a hitherto undamaged tree. An alternate, and possibly more realistic scenario, is of a tree with several episodes of breakage and regrowth building up a stout stem without ever attaining the potential maximum height.

Von Mueller's early records also mention two trees on the nearby Black Spur Range, one alive and measuring 128 metres and another fallen tree said to measure 146 metres, but these were either based on hearsay or uncertain reliability. David Boyle also reported that a tree at Cape Otway measured 158 metres, but this too was based on hearsay.

Many prominent botanists and tree enthusiasts have long been sceptical of such claims because they lacked first-hand evidence from a credible source. But Carder notes[3] that nor can all the claims be considered imaginary: "The frequency, the persistence, and the wide occurrence of the reports leads to the belief that there was some basis of fact for the statements made."

None, however, had been verified by direct documentation until 1982 when Ken Simpendorfer, a Special Projects Officer for the Forests Commission, Victoria, directed a search of official Victorian archives. It unearthed a forgotten report from more than a century earlier, one that had not been referred to in other accounts of the species up to that time. It was written on 21 February 1872, by the Inspector of State Forests, William Ferguson, and was addressed to the Assistant Commissioner of Lands and Surveys, Clement Hodgkinson. Ferguson had been instructed to explore and inspect the watershed of the Watts River and reported trees in great number and exceptional size in areas where loggers had not yet reached. He wrote: "In one instance I measured with a tape line one huge specimen that lay prostrate across a tributary of the Watts, and found it to be 435 feet [132.6 metres] from its root to the top of its trunk. At 5 feet from the ground it measures 18 feet in diameter, and at the extreme end where it has broken in its fall, it is 3 feet in diameter. This tree has been much burnt by fire, and I fully believe that before it fell it must have been more than 500 feet [152.4 metres] high. As it now lies, it forms a complete bridge across a deep ravine."[3]

Carder concludes that the height limit for E. regnans is "not greatly over 300 feet now, but there is sound evidence that trees very much taller did indeed at one time stand,".[3]

It is also possible that individual trees will again attain such heights. Author Bob Beale has recorded that the tallest trees in the Black Spur Range now measure about 85 metres but - due to major bushfires in the 1920s and 30s - are less than 80 years old and have been growing consistently at the rate of about one metre a year.[4]

Great Info?

Where do u got all of this amazing picture

Greetings from me

consacepo

i am very thankfull to neatorama.com

It is probably the oldest living thing in Asia.