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Prior to the discovery of ancient bristlecone pines and creosote bush rings,
the world's record for longevity went to the magnificent giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) of the western slopes
of the Sierra Nevada. The greatest authenticated age of a giant sequoia, derived from counting annual rings on a cut stump,
was nearly 3,200 years. Although it may fall short of the world's oldest, the giant sequoia has the undisputed record for
the world's most massive living thing. The largest tree, named General Sherman, is 272 feet (83 m) tall with a massive trunk
35 feet (11 m) in diameter and 109 feet (33 m) in circumference at the base. Even more remarkable is the fact that at a point
120 feet (36 m) in the air the trunk of General Sherman is still 17 feet (5 m) in diameter. It has been estimated to contain
over 600,000 board feet of timber, enough to build 120 average-sized houses.
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Currently, the oldest living organism known is an individual of Pinus longaeva nicknamed "Methuselah" (after Methuselah, the longest-lived person in the Bible), located in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the White Mountains of eastern California, and measured by core samples to be about 4,700 years old. The U.S. Forest Service does not reveal the actual position of "Methuselah" in the bristlecone grove, in order to protect the tree. A bristlecone
older than "Methuselah", named "Prometheus", was cut down in 1964.
The exceptional tree, named Hyperion, at 379.1 feet height, is eight feet taller than the previous
record tree, another coast redwood called Stratosphere Giant, 370.5 feet tall, located in a state park about 90 miles south.
Some of those taller trees may have fallen to loggers, while the remaining ones were
saved by a logging ban when the Redwood National Park was expanded in 1978.
The exact locations of the trees won't be pinpointed due to concern that too many visitors could
damage the delicate ecosystem of the mild, foggy slopes where the redwoods grow.
Some flowering trees such as the African baobab (Adansonia digitata), the South American ombu
(Phytolacca dioica) and the Indian banyan (Ficus bengalensis) also have enormous trunks up to 100 feet (30 m)
or more in circumference, but do not grow as tall. One large baobab trunk can store 25,000 gallons of water weighing 100 tons.
According to E. Palmer and N. Pitman (Trees of South Africa, 1961), a tree with a volume of 7,500 cubic feet may contain
30,000 gallons of water. This amount of water alone would weigh an astonishing 120 tons. The Indian banyan also has the record
for the world's largest (spreading) tree crown, with 1000 pillar-like prop roots supporting massive limbs that cover four
acres. Alexander the Great reportedly camped with an army of 7,000 soldiers under such a fig tree. Other trees of the tropical
rain forest, such as the kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra) of Central and South America, also develop huge buttressed trunks.
Bamboos are a group of woody perennial evergreen plants in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Some of its members are giants, forming by far the largest members of the grass family. Bamboo can
grow up to 4 feet per day.
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