The UK has quite a few ancient yew trees. Some may be over 2000 years old. Often they are in church grounds (because ones that weren't got cut down to make long bows perhaps?).
I like to imagine aliens visiting earth and walking straight past us and communing with Pando.
> Recent 2024 analysis confirmed it is at least 16,000 years old, with possibilities ranging up to 80,000 years, making it one of the oldest living organisms.
I would say the Eucalyptus tree, planted all over the world but native to Australia, is quite unusual.
Young Eucalyptus trees have leaves that are rounded and are arranged opposite to one another. However, when mature the leaves of a Eucalyptus are lance-like and are arranged in an alternating fashion. This to me is quite unusual.
Which Eucalyptus tree? There are between 700-900 species and they look nothing alike.
See E. grandis, E. tetraptera, E. chartaboma, E. deglupta, E. pulverulenta for examples of diversity
Some are incredibly tall with really smooth skin, some are basically bushes, some have really messy papery bark; some even have rainbow bark! Some have really long leaves while some have extremely short tightly wound round leaves
I agree eucalypts are unusual, I also find them beautiful, especially ones with smooth light bark like Ghost Gum and Citriodora, which has light pinky-orange bark! Such a presence!). I've never seen a Rainbow Gum but would love to one day!
I live in South Australia and I was surprised to hear about all Eucalypts having 'leaf dimorphism' (that is what I searched for, then learned that it's usually known as 'heteroblasty') I have of course seen it many times in-the-wild, but it is not universal to all Eucalypts.
Banksia, Grevillea and Hakea are also very beautiful Australian native trees/shrubs imo, but they are a different group: Proteaceae. And there's a fascinating fruiting small tree called 'Quandong' that's in the Sandalwood family (still seems bit related to eucalypts or maybe Wattle (Acacia) when looking at it in real life though).
The lance-like down pointing shape is so that they can rotate slightly to reduce surface area exposed to hot sun (and reduce transpiration/water loss).
The trees are not unusual at all for the people living in tropical climates. Fun trees Yes but unusual no. Most people of the world live in tropical climates so for most these are not unusual
This is (was?) the advantage of a printed encyclopedia - one that I've never really been able to replicate scrolling wikipedia. I think it has more to do with the limitations and lack of linking than lack of information (each of these trees has a wikipedia article).
A wikipedia dive session is likely to get more and more specific into trees (attacked by twees!); an encyclopedia flip session is more likely to go across a wide variety of subjects.
A while back I read this book "The Secret Life of Trees: How They Live and Why They Matter" from Colin Tudge and I was blown away by the fact that Mangrove roots effectively breath with the rhythm of tide. As the water recedes, change in pressure and the air is drawn into the pores. As the water comes in, pressure pushes stale air out and seals the pores. Trees are beautiful.
Since we're talking trees. Only trees that grow in an area with distinct warm/cold cycles have rings, tropical trees don't and the only way to tell the age of most tropical trees is to have planted it yourself
Trees that grow in areas with wet/dry cycles also have rings. And since most of the trees from permanently-wet areas also have some kind of annual or semi-annual cycle, I'd guess the ringless ones are a rare exception everywhere.
Palms and Bamboo are technically "very big weeds". They are more related with grasses than with pines and never have rings. Bananas are also just giant herbs.
So Monocots don't have rings. Anything else that is a tree in a tropical forest has rings. It does not matter where they grow. The rings are smaller in slow growing species, and are different structurally in conifers, but this is all.
There is something fascinating about someone getting a copy of Encyclopedia Brititanica, reading about trees, and then going to Wikipedia for pictures and to fill out details.
As an unusual tree I’ve always liked the Dawn Redwood, Metasequoia glyptostroboides. It was known only from fossil record and thought extinct until a small grove was found in a mountain valley in China in 1946. There was a wave of popularity and a bunch were planted worldwide, which are now mature and easy to find if you want to see one. They grow well and very quickly in cool to temperate climates. They have little tiny deciduous needle-leaves that don't need to be raked, and grow tall and symmetrical without spreading too wide.
I started 2 sprouts I bought by mail order, after one growing season they were nearly 3 feet tall. I got them mail order from Jonsteen Nursery, they have been specializing in various redwood saplings for many years. https://sequoiatrees.com/
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[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 59.4 ms ] threadhttps://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2025/08/ancient-yew-tr...
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> Recent 2024 analysis confirmed it is at least 16,000 years old, with possibilities ranging up to 80,000 years, making it one of the oldest living organisms.
Young Eucalyptus trees have leaves that are rounded and are arranged opposite to one another. However, when mature the leaves of a Eucalyptus are lance-like and are arranged in an alternating fashion. This to me is quite unusual.
See E. grandis, E. tetraptera, E. chartaboma, E. deglupta, E. pulverulenta for examples of diversity
Some are incredibly tall with really smooth skin, some are basically bushes, some have really messy papery bark; some even have rainbow bark! Some have really long leaves while some have extremely short tightly wound round leaves
I live in South Australia and I was surprised to hear about all Eucalypts having 'leaf dimorphism' (that is what I searched for, then learned that it's usually known as 'heteroblasty') I have of course seen it many times in-the-wild, but it is not universal to all Eucalypts.
Banksia, Grevillea and Hakea are also very beautiful Australian native trees/shrubs imo, but they are a different group: Proteaceae. And there's a fascinating fruiting small tree called 'Quandong' that's in the Sandalwood family (still seems bit related to eucalypts or maybe Wattle (Acacia) when looking at it in real life though).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSch_NgZpQs
A wikipedia dive session is likely to get more and more specific into trees (attacked by twees!); an encyclopedia flip session is more likely to go across a wide variety of subjects.
So Monocots don't have rings. Anything else that is a tree in a tropical forest has rings. It does not matter where they grow. The rings are smaller in slow growing species, and are different structurally in conifers, but this is all.
Two examples right from downtown São Paulo,
https://kenschutte.com/lima-to-rio-by-bus/images/trees.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metasequoia_glyptostroboides
I started 2 sprouts I bought by mail order, after one growing season they were nearly 3 feet tall. I got them mail order from Jonsteen Nursery, they have been specializing in various redwood saplings for many years. https://sequoiatrees.com/