Kouta, You raise several interesting points, and I'll try to find some time to reply to them in depth. I do want to comment on a couple issue right away. There have been some initial investigations of junipers in Asia. Jan Esper has lead team looking at them in the Altai Mountains and another mountain range (Korkorums?) Some of those populations are the highest elevation trees in the world, and I think they did find some individuals a little over 1000 years old. Let me know if you would like copies of the articles.
Would you mind sending me the references for the Juniperus communis ages? I am studying the species and the greatest age I've seen reported is 840 years from treeline in northwestern Russia. Jess 2009/11/13 Kouta Räsänen <[email protected]>: > Ed, > > Those old oaks and lindens have been important cultural objects. So, > if something happened to them, it should be mentioned in historical > accounts, too. But anyway you are right: historical accounts cannot be > as safe as year rings. An another thing is that these 1000-year-old > broadleaf trees in Europe are exclusively trees without natural > competition: in the nature they would not be able to reach such ages. > > Such work, as you are doing, should be done for another regions in the > world indeed. In Europe there would be also possibilities to do that. > Globally, I find two main reasons hindering such work. First is > language barriers, and second is that in many countries there are > enough bigger problems than insufficient knowledge of maximum ages > attained by local trees. Almost all the tallest, biggest and oldest > trees are growing in english speaking countries, mostly with a high > GDP. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think before mid-1950's nobody > had an idea that bristlecone pines are exceptional old, and many > countries are at least those 50 years behind US in development. For > example, has somebody studied the junipers of Asian mountains? They > could place themselves high in the old-list, as do some juniper > species in mountains of western NA. Who knows. If they have been > studied, the results have perhaps been published in Chinese or > Russian, and we cannot read them > > Of ring counted trees, there are two species in my home country, which > would be quite high in the old-list: Common Juniper (Juniperus > communis) - 1070 years in Lemmenjoki and 940 years in Utsjoki, and > Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris) - 780 years in Urho Kekkonen National > Park. All these trees are very gnarly low trees growing in mountains > of north Finland. In Central Europe, Swiss Pine (Pinus cembra) has > been found to be 1100 years in French Alps and 1018 years in Alps of > north Italy. These pines resemble little bit bristlecones in their > habit. > > An interesting aspect: many of the oldest tree species grow in > habitats with short growing season and therefore are most of the year > switched to a rest mode. If Fokienia attains in Vietnam an age of 1000 > years with growing season of 12 months in a year, and bristlecones > attain an age of 5000 years with growing season of 2 months of so (?), > are their physiological ages actually about the same? > > - Kouta > > On Nov 12, 5:08 pm, "Edward Frank" <[email protected]> wrote: >> Kouta, >> >> Yes the list seems to very North America centered. It generally lists only >> trees that have been cross-dated which have a single trunk, with a few >> exceptions. It draws heavily on the International Tree Ring Data Base. >> Most of the oldest chronologies are from North America, so they dominate the >> list. Historical accounts are a problem because there is a question if this >> is the same tree that was planted, or is it an offspring, or is it a >> coppiced trunk, or is it grown from a root sprout of the original tree.... >> >> It does not really provide much useful information even for tree species in >> the eastern North America. Neil Pederson created the Eastern Old-list >> drawing on much the same data but focusing on trees in eastern NA, many of >> which are shorter lived, and do not even make the original list. >> >> Even beyond that listing, the dendrochronological record tends to focus on >> longer lived specimens. I am trying to compile a listing for North America >> based upon cross-dated cores, scattered ring counts, etc. The degree of >> accuracy of these numbers is relatively poor, especially from really porous >> woods. The goal is not to provide a definitive listing given the >> inaccuracies, but to better understand the age potential for some of these >> species and the age structure of some of our forests. Even these ages with >> substantial errors is better than the lack of any information at all for the >> vast majority of tree species. A similar regional approach should be taken >> for Europe, Africa, etc. with the methodology noted so that the information >> is available and there is some way to judge the accuracy of the information. >> >> Ed Frank >> >> Check out my new Blog: http://nature-web-network.blogspot.com/(and click on >> some of the ads) >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: Kouta Räsänen >> To: ENTSTrees >> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 9:49 AM >> Subject: [ENTS] Re: Angiosperms....are there many (or any) that can reach >> a 1,000 years of age with the original stem? >> >> ENTS, >> >> The Old-List seems to be quite North America centered... > > -- > Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org > Send email to [email protected] > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en > To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -- Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected]
