It is an interesting experience running a blog. As regular readers know, The Green Man posts on a quite diverse range of topics and it is impossible to know which is going to be a popular post and which not. Some of the more peripheral posts have been long term favourites on The Green Man. One post in question is the inadvertant killing of the worlds tallest hardwood tree in Tasmania.

This has some sort of synergy really given that The Green Man is an ancient forest spirit but it was completely unintentional. Anyway, in the spirit of the earlier post, Nature has an interesting article on the theoretical limit to which a tree can grow, it is 130 metres apparently.

As pointed out in the comments section of the earlier post the tallest trees are California redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens), and the research has shown that they have about maxed out, height wise, because of the difficulty of getting water up that high to feed their leaves. The tug of gravity and the friction between the water and the vessels through which it flows mean that fluid cannot be dragged any higher than 122-130 metres.