General Sherman Tree
The General Sherman Tree is the largest living tree on earth. It is a mountain or giant sequoia ( Sequoiadendron giganteum ) and is in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park in the US state of California . Its age is estimated to be around 1900 to 2500 years.
Discovery and naming
As the first non-Indian, the Giant Forest was shown to the rancher Hale Tharp in 1858 by Indian friends. Later the trapper and naturalist James Wolverton accompanied Tharp to the Giant Forest and spent several winters there. On August 7, 1879, Wolverton discovered the tree and named it after General William T. Sherman , under whom he had served as a lieutenant in the Civil War.
Members of the socialist Kaweah Cooperative Colony , who settled in the area around the forest from 1886 until the colony was dissolved in 1892, named the tree Karl Marx Tree .
After the establishment of the Sequoia National Park in 1890, the tree was in its protected area. The park administration listed the tree as the General Sherman Tree according to Wolverton's naming.
In 1931, various giant sequoias were measured more precisely and it was found that the General Sherman Tree has the largest volume of all trees recorded. Since the trunk volume of this tree species by far exceeds that of all others, it is assumed that this largest known giant sequoia is also the largest tree in the world.
Dimensions
The characteristic feature of the General Sherman Tree with a trunk height of 83.8 m and a chest height diameter of 825 centimeters is that it also has an above-average diameter in the further course of the trunk , averaged almost five meters over the total height. Determinations of the trunk volume of this massive tree in 1975 gave a value of 1487 cubic meters , later were 1489 cubic meters, and the National Park Service currently lists it at 52,508 cubic feet (cft), which corresponds to 1,486.9 m³ (as of December 2012). This makes the General Sherman Tree the most voluminous living tree on earth, which is why it is sometimes referred to as the " Largest Living Thing on Earth ". However, clonal creatures can be heavier and take on larger dimensions in terms of their footprint.
At the beginning of 2006 the tree lost a large branch during a winter storm, which destroyed parts of the barriers around the tree when it fell and tore a crater in the footpaths. The loss of the branch does not change the position of the tree as the most voluminous living tree on earth, because the volumes in this list are only compared for the trunks (as trunk volume; because branch volume, leaf volume and root volume are usually not known).
| height | 83.8 m |
| Attachment height of the first larger branch (as of 1997) | 39.6 m |
| Girth at the trunk base | 31.12 m |
| Diameter at the base of the trunk | 11.1 m |
| Breast height diameter (at 1.30 m) | 8.25 m |
| Diameter at 18.3 m (60 feet) | 5.3 m |
| Diameter at a height of 54.9 m (180 feet) | 4.3 m |
| Diameter of the largest branch (as of 1997) | 2.1 m |
| Average crown diameter | 32.5 m |
| volume | 1486.9 m³ |
| Estimated live mass of the trunk (as of 1938) | 1100 t |
| Estimated total live mass (as of 1938) | 2000 t |
See also
literature
- Atlant Bieri: The skyscrapers of the forest. Professional tree hunters are looking for the world record holders in the forest. Neue Zürcher Zeitung NZZ am Sonntag, Zurich, January 14, 2007, p. 69
- Robert van Pelt: Forest Giants of the Pacific Coast , page 4f, 2001, Canadian ISBN 0-9684143-1-1
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Nathan L. Stephenson: Estimated Ages of Some Large Giant Sequoias: General Sherman Keeps Getting Younger . In: Nature Notes, Yosemite Association . 2, 2002.
- ^ John R. White, Samuel J. Pusateri: Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks Stanford University Press, 1949, 30
- ^ America and the Utopian Dream
- ↑ San Francisco Express Times ( Memento of the original from January 31, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 6.0 MB)
- ↑ Danny Palmerlee, Beth Kohn: Yosemite, Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks.
- ^ Robert van Pelt: Forest Giants of the Pacific Coast , page 4f, 2001, Canadian ISBN 0-9684143-1-1
- ↑ List of the 30 largest giant sequoia trees, compiled by the Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park Service (as of 2012) pdf (0.2 MB; English).
- ↑ General Sherman, The Biggest Tree in the World , Monumentaltrees.com
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j The General Sherman Tree . In: Sequoia National Park . US National Park Service. March 27, 1997. Retrieved December 31, 2010.
- ^ A b Walter Fry, John Roberts White: Big Trees . Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, California 1942.
Coordinates: 36 ° 34 ′ 54 ″ N , 118 ° 45 ′ 5 ″ W.