Some Unusual Trees

hermitcrab

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?). https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2025/08/ancient-yew-tr...

nvalis

Related and also interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_individual_trees

sheept

On mobile, this website seems to prevent you from pinch zooming in, which makes it slightly inconvenient to quickly zoom into the photos of the trees.

volemo

Wasn't sure which kind of trees to expect. :D

smusamashah

The traveller tree looked the most interesting, like a peacock's feather. https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2017/12/12/the-travel...

simquat

In Calabria — the very south of Italy — there this[0] 1000-years-old plane tree. [0] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platano_di_Vrisi

cluckindan

Related: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2021/05/02/theres-no-such-th...

Mistletoe

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.

curl-up

Highly recommend a series on Lodoicea (aka Double coconut or Coco de mer) from the Weird Explorer yt channel: https://youtu.be/GqicsIDYmgU

mykowebhn

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.

philipov

And now... No. 1: The Larch

karussell

I highly recommend this 12min video "Trees Are So Weird" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSch_NgZpQs

Guestmodinfo

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

bombcar

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.

gryzzly

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.

MeteorMarc

Are you sure the Madagascar traveller's tree is not a camouflaged mobile network antenna?

luxuryballs

that monolith tree gives me engineering anxiety, you mean all 20,000 shade users are depending on that singleton tree?

jvm___

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

ks2048

I was in Brazil for the first time last year and was very impressed with the trees. Two examples right from downtown São Paulo, https://kenschutte.com/lima-to-rio-by-bus/images/trees.jpg

kkylin

Of course one reads a (nice) post like this and must add one's favorite not on the list. Here's mine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fouquieria_columnaris