Hi Martin,

A very great height for Platanus but surely possible. The record of Europe wich is sure is 48,56 m for a plane in Bryanston, Dorset, England, measured by climbing with direct tape drop. Before it was already measured as 48,5 m with laser by Robert van Pelt, a famous tree measurer from Washington State, USA.

You write you measured the 45 m tree exactly. We like to know your measurement method.

In fact we don't trust measurements with clinometer with a baseline to the trunk of the tree or Vertex hypsometer (both the 'tangent'- method: you measure the distance to the trunk as well as the angle to the top and calculate from these the height) not to much, we have experienced a lot of mismeasurements were made with this method, also by us before we started to measure with laser, with the 'sine'- method: you measure the straight distance to the top as well as the angle to the same top and calculate from these the height); this is more exact in the case that the top is not vertical above the trunk.

Tim for this reason has made the system "measured exactly by laser or by climbing with direct tape drop" wich you should use only in that case. Our own measurements before 2009 with Suunto clinometer or Vertex hypsometer we call 'around'.

Kind regards, Jeroen

Hi Jeroen,

I understand your doubts about the height, but it based on official data published not only on the internet but also in many books about the protected trees in Slovakia. The village Sokolovce is very near my home in Piestany. It is very nice tree, the oldest and tallest london plane tree in Slovakia. You are welcome to measure the height of this tree :-) Best regards, Martin

I have just had a look and there isn't a photograph on here but impressive tree.

http://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/fra/vaucluse/curcuron/2291_placedeletang/

Some of the for-shortening in these photos is really apparent, this London Plane does not look c40 metres tall when you see the lady at the base for perspective. The more and more I see this, you really do have to be at some considerable distance from the tree to attempt a measurement using photos like this.

www.redwoodworld.co.uk/picturepages/aldfield.htm

This was my first attempt at measuring a tree from photos and person of known height but I now know that I was far too close to the tree when photographing here. The for-shortening is very apparent, I measured it at 105 feet, 32 metres, it was measured in 1984 at 38 metres, 124 feet. My longer distance photos, 1 km, I have measured it from photos at somewhere c139- feet, c42.5 metres. The degree of error from my first measurement attempt when taking the photo fat too close to the tree is glaring.

I noted the link down correctly above and it is not of a 40 metre London Plane at Curcuron, France but these Horse Chestnuts? The link hasn't worked?

I have just done an estimation of height of the London Plane tree at Place de'letang, Curcuron, France from the photograph. The lady does not look especially tall,6 feet+ for example exceptionally long legs so I have used a height of 5 feet 8 inches for her. In the photo, the tree measures 190 mm, the lady 14 mm, the tree is 13.57 times bigger than the lady, times 68 inches (height of lady) equals 922.85, divided by 12 to get height in feet= 76.90 feet, 23.44 metres. The for-shortening in this photo from being too close must be severe if this tree is 40 metres.

Hi Rob,

Indeed the photo of the plane tree in France with the lady has much to much foreshortening to be used for a hight estimate. I am still serious that you better should stop with that method, results are only to be trusted if you are quite far from the tree and have the whole tree as well as the person or other object at the base good in vieuw end exactly measured. But even then, if the tree is leaning towards you or away from you it will give faults. So save some money for a laser (cheaper than a good camera) and you will see this works much better!

I have an example here:

http://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/nld/gelderland/rheden/135_estaterhederoord/3651/

This photo I took a year ago, from a distance of about 50 m. My wife, Gerdien, is 167 cm, with shoes 1.7 m. The tree at the photo is 14,5 times the height of Gerdien, wich gives a height of 24.65 m. In fact it is 30.2 m!

Jeroen

Hello Jeroen, you are absolutely right, the photographic technique is not accurate, it is only a rough guide, but what is interesting is that the readings are all coming in significantly below the true height. I am really looking forward to the Tree Register person coming to have a go at the Sawley redwoods as even with the photographic technique comparing my own height, I consistently get around 51-52 metres and it is such a deep ravine, the photograph was taken only about 180ish feet from the base of the tree. I have also been given the location of the 48 metre Sitka Spruce just south of Richmond so hope to have a look at and photograph it when the better weather comes.

I don't know what happens but when I want to post a 'New Topic', the cursor will not move to the comment box when I click, I have to just post the heading and then edit?

I wondered if anyone had visited previously or lived near Polecat Copse at Haslemere in Surrey. I visited in April 2010 and there are some very tall trees in the valley forest. I didn't have a digital camera then and didn't take any photos but there are some online here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23718187@N04/3115883325/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ashe/3201031751/?q=polecatcopse douglas firs

There are some 53/54 metre Douglas Firs here plus a very big Sequoiadendron

www.redwoodworld.co.uk/picturepages/haslemere.htm

'King Kong' is right at the side of the road but hemmed in tightly in the valley. I would think it pretty difficult to get a clean laser shot at, I couldn't see the top of 'King Kong' for the branches and crowns of other trees. It muust be another tree surely 50 metres or maybe more.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ashe/page283/

Ashley Wood's flickr pages are very interesting.

The top Flickr link hasn't worked, instead , the left photo is of a Douglas Fir at Cragside, Northumberland measured on Dec 18th 2009 at 60 metres and claiming to be England's tallest tree! It could be 61 metres possibly now in two years? Know anything about this Conifers?

Last time I saw it (about 8 years ago, grief!) I measured it as 58m, but didn't appear to have very long leaders in the last few years (maybe around 20-25cm/year), having got tall enough to lose good shelter from southwest winds. I'd agree it could be 60m by now, but I'd doubt it is 61m yet. High time I revisited it, though!

It is a shame that there is not a person in the photo next to the tree as without some reference it is difficult to really appreciate the height of this tree. The fence poles in front' it is difficult to estimate their height to give some form of reference, it may be a low wire fence or could be a higher one.

I think this an important aspect and would like to recpommend to you to iclude in your distribution map of cultivated trees a very well growing Dawn redwood tree. The seed of the tree was planted 1983 from seed received from Smith collrdge, U.S.

In 1992 the young tree was planted in front of the the Jerusalem Botanical Garden's visitor center where it thrives to this very day.

Dr. Michael Avishai,

Scientific Director (Emeritus)

Jerusalem Botanical Garden.

Hello Michael and welcome at this site.

I have now made it possible to also register trees in Israel, so if you want you can add this and other trees in Jerusalem and surroundings. http://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/isr/

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you would have any problems.

Kind regards,

Tim

Hi Owen Munday,

Nice oaks! How did you do the height measurements? This oak is about as tall as the tallest oak of the UK measured by Owen Johnson of the Tree Register in Stourhead, Wiltshire as 40 m also. This oak is not a real forest grown tree but a bit open grown tree with rather low brancing. It should surprice me if such an oak really is 40 m. The tallest oak of that type I ever measured was 37.3 m, a Sessile oak at Nettlecombe estate near Exmoor, see

http://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/gbr/england/somerset/2731_nettlecombepark/ and

http://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/gbr/england/somerset/2731_nettlecombepark/4553/. Taller oaks in the Netherlands, Belgium as well as Bialowieza, Poland, were always long trunked forest grown trees, seehttp://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/world-quercusrobur/hd1 .

Regards,

Jeroen Philippona

'4553' looks like a magnificent tree Jeroen. Quite difficult to appreciate the height because there is no height reference in the photos like a person of known height for example or an object of known height.

As these trees are close to a public road, it is possible to get a glimpse of these trees in Google Streetview too. To do that, click on the link "show on map" on the tree's page, and drag the little orange person symbol in the scale bar onto the road near the tree.

Kind regards,

Tim

Indeed the tall sessile oak of Nettlecombe can be seen in the distance to the east of the road wich runs north south and to the west of the tree; it can be recognised from the overvieuw photo I made from it from the same side. From the road to the east it can be seen only a bit above some nearer bye hedges.

Jeroen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetco_River

I wondered if there are any contributors on here from Oregon who have any photos of the redwoods in the most northern grove along the Chetco River at RM 15, 8 miles north of the Californian border. I have often wondered how big the redwoods are in the groves in Oregon and have just come across this. Morris 2007, Ostertag 2001 quote that they are' 300 to 800 years old, 5 to 13 feet (2-4 metres) in diameter and some exceed 300 feet'. These trees appear to be in a grove in Alfred Loeb State Park. The photos which come up when you put 'redwoods along Chetco River' etc into Google are not too great.

http://www.mendorailhistory.org/1_redwoods/redwoods_photos.htm

This site is abit out of date now but one that I enjoy looking through. It is very interesting for the photos of the great trees which were felled in Mendocino County in times past.

Hi Rob,

You should contact Mario Vaden of Oregon, known of his website on tall trees, especially redwoods, seehttp://www.mdvaden.com/grove_of_titans.shtml were you can also find his e-mail adress, and also Michael Taylor, famous for his finding many of the tallest redwoods and other tall trees in California and Oregon: seehttp://www.landmarktrees.net/

Regards, Jeroen

Hello Jeroen, I emailed Mario Vaden last year to congratulate him on his wonderful website with his superb photographs. He replied thanking me for my comments and I had hoped to keep in touch with him to closely follow his work, but he never replied to several subsequent emails that I sent him.

That's a pity. He and Michael Taylor rather often are active on the NTS (Native Tree Society) BBS forum pages. When you react with a good or interesting remark or question on their topics, they will react as well. Otherwise you can start this question yourself on the NTS - BBS.

http://www.ents-bbs.org/index.php?sid=597fc92ed67eab368fca562800a7cc61

Than you first have to make yourself known as a new contributor and get a user name and password. The level of some of the contributors is high, much higher than at monumental trees, but you should not be shy, there are also less high brow contributors of this forum. I have written rather often at it. They like it when there are people from the UK and Europe contributing.

Jeroen

Mounting downward facing LIDAR instruments on an aircraft to map and measure tall trees, as is being done by the 'Save the Redwoods League', Steve Sillett, how would this technique compare for accuracy with a person pointing a Forestry 550 type laser up at the tree to measure it? I would be interested to hear comments from the experienced tree height measurers on here?

Steve Sillett and his companions use laser from the ground techniques as well as LiDAR from airplanes (perhaps they only use the LiDAR maps and dont do they the measurements from the airplane themselves). LiDAR is very usefull for a global survay, but can make mistakes when trees are leaning over a steep slope, while the distance between the top and the lower part of the slope can be much larger then the real tree hight. So some extreme tall tree hits were from much less tall trees, several researchers have remarked. So for general survays of large areas LiDAR gives very good information, but after that you need exploration of the forest and the trees form the ground. Steve Sillett, David Atkins, Michael Taylor, Robert van Pelt and others all use more expensive high tech lasers from tripods to measure the very tall trees, not the cheaper, easy but less precise Nikon Forestry 550 wich I use.

Jeroen

Thank you Jeroen for your comments, enlightening. I can see what you mean with the different land heights at the side of the trees, the crown spread would probably block out the laser's view of the ground for some distance radiating out from the tree.

Dear friends,

Recently we (Kiev Ecological and Cultural center) have started to download information about the unique Ukrainian trees to this great site. Many of these trees now have protected status thanks to environmental activity of our center. In particular, in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, we have protected by low around 250 trees.

When such protected tree is applied on official city maps it is important to develop requirements for the formation of protection zones - gridded both in terms of ground level, and in the vertical - above ground and underground levels. It is important to locate on a map not only a particular ancient tree but also give the volume and height of the crown (for protection when installing and repairing air networks), the scope and depth of the root system (to protect the trees from building underground pipelines).

Probably you can advise standard techniques for measuring and mapping information on multi-level zoning of ancient trees? Are ancient trees in your countries are indicated on official cadastre maps including vertical measurements?

In Britain, the required root protection zones for mature trees are:

Tree trunk diameter under 35 cm: 6 metres

Tree trunk diameter 35-75 cm: 9 metres

Tree trunk diameter over 75 cm: 12 metres

Any work involving construction or excavation should not be closer to the tree than those distances.

Although not specified by the regulations, for very large trees, I would think the protection distances should be increased further, perhaps 15 metres for trees over 1 m diameter, 20 metres for trees over 1.5 m diameter, and so on.

Dag Henk

Prachtige toevoeging van de site Henk. Mooie foto's ook. Als erkend berceau-liefhebber heb ik deze plaats nog nooit bezocht en kende ik hem alleen uit het boek Monumentale bomen in Nederland, waarin Jeroen hem vereeuwigd heeft.

Wel zou ik de tekst als hoofdtekst plaatsen ipv als fotobijschrift bij elke foto. Dan komt dit item nog meer tot zijn recht.

Bedankt, Han van Meegeren

Dag Han, ...dank voor tip en compliment. Het lijkt mij prachtig om daar in het voorjaar te zijn, nét als het beukenblad begint uit te lopen.

Groet, Henk van Boeschoten.

Hallo, ich habe ein problem mit Standort. Es geht nicht. Ich wurde ein Baum hinzufuegen, und habe ich Problem mit Standort. Bis Standorta ahbe ich alles geschrieben, aber bei Standort alas stop.

Hilfe?

Ervin, Slovenia

Hallo Ervin, Sie müssen zuerst eine neue Standort inzufuegen.

Sie können das tun wenn Sie wählen "Fuegen Sie einen neuen Standort" und dann 1) wählen Sie ein Label zum Beispiel "Am Eingang der" und 2) geben Sie einen neuen Namen ein, die Sie selbst wählen können, und 3) klicken Sie auf "Speichern".

Dann können Sie fortfahren.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Tim

http://www.conifers.org/cu/Cryptomeria.php

I wondered if any of the contributors on here from Japan know the area around Nikko and the 250 year stand of Cryptomeria Japonica where a man called Vidakovic in 1991 reported trees of 65 metres tall and up to 2 metres in diameter? There are also some other areas in Japan mentioned here with tall Sugi trees.

http://botanyboy.org/japanese-cedar-cryptomeria-japonica-v-japonica/

There are some photos of the old and tallish Sugi trees on this site. A tree in an old growth stand at Wakasuiyama is reportedly 40 metres tall with a 16 metre circumference, though it splits into several trunks so far up.