Note: Recently a Norway Spruce {Picea excelsa} made the headline, Oldest Living Tree Found in Sweden. Number 26 and 72 still apply. The above ground part of the tree is not anywhere near the age of the Bristlecone Pine {Pinus longaeva} in number 26, nor is the {clonal} root system anywhere near the age of the Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides} in number 72.

1 * The oldest workable wood/lumber on earth is Ancient Kauri {Agathis australis}. The trees from ancient forests on North Island, New Zealand have been buried under peat moss since the last ice age. They are well preserved and are now being dug up from the tundra. They have been radio carbon dated to approximately 30,000 - 50,000 years old. Of coarse, 50,000 years is the ultimate limit of radio carbon dating so it is quite possible that these trees could be older!

It is estimated that the trees were growing approximately 12 - 20 centuries before they were buried by the ice. Some of the trees have a circumference of approximately 40 foot and heights of almost 200 foot. The Ancient Kauri trees are native to New Zealand and are not found anywhere else in the world. The wood/lumber from these trees can be purchased from, Ancientwood, LTD. Each piece of Ancient Kauri wood/lumber purchased, comes with a Certificate Of Authenticity.

2 * It is not uncommon for a Pohutukaw, New Zealand Christmas tree {Metrosiderosis excelsa} to have multiple trunks. An ancient Pohutukaw named Te Waha O Rerekohu, is growing on the grounds of the Te Waha O Rerekohu School in Te Araroa that has 22 trunks! It is approximately 65 foot tall and is over 600 years old.

3 * In 1872, trained forester William Ferguson, reported a fallen Eucalyptus Tree (Eucalyptus regnans), which was 18 feet in diameter and 435 feet long thus making it the tallest (or longest) tree ever found.

4 * The world's tallest living standing tree, a Redwood {Sequoia gigantea} named Hyperion, is in Redwood National Park located in California. Last measured in October 2006, it was approximately 379 foot 1 1/2 inches {almost 38 stories} tall, or approximately 6 stories higher than the Statue of Liberty.

5 * The world's tallest living standing tree, other than a Redwood {Sequoia gigantea}, is a 327 foot high Douglas Fir {Pseudotsuga menziesii} named Ray Doerner, located in Coos Bay, Oregon. It would make more than 60,000 board feet of lumber.

6 * The tree with the widest {diameter} tree trunk in the world is an African Baobab {Adansonia digitata} located in Modjadjiskloof, Limpopo, South Africa. Its trunk diameter is almost 49 foot, it has a circumference of 155 foot and is 72 foot tall. Oh, one other amazing fact, it is known as the Big Baobab Tree Pub. It is hollow inside, its trunk walls are 6 foot 6 inches thick and it can comfortably seat approximately 15 people. Some African Baobab trees can store as much as 32,000 gallons {in weight, approximately 133 tons} of water in their trunks.

7 * The tree with the world's greatest recorded tree circumference {girth} is the Santa Maria del Tule, an Montezuma Cypress {Taxodium mucronatum}, in Santa Maria del Tule, Oaxaca, Mexico. The town is named after the tree. Because the trunk of the tree is not circular in shape but in reality has a distorted and irregular shape, you can't multiply the diameter by 3.14159 {pi} and come up with its true approximate circumference {girth} which is in excess of 160 foot. It is approximately 141 foot tall and over 2000 years old.

It was thought that the trunks of the tree were several different individual trees that had merged together. A test of DNA samples taken from the trunks of the tree in 1996 using the technique Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA indicated that the trunks came from a single tree.

8 * At one time, in the late 18th century the world's greatest recorded tree circumference {girth} was a European Chestnut {Castanea sativa) known as the Tree Of The Hundred Horses, located on Mount Etna in Sicily, Italy. At that time it had a circumference {girth} of almost 190 foot. Since then, it has separated into three parts {trees}.

9 * The blackest wood in the world is Ebony {Diospyros crassiflora}.

10 * The whitest wood in the world is Holly {Ilex opaca}. The Silver Striped Holly seems to produce the whitest wood of all the species of Holly. To produce the whitest wood, the best time to cut down Holly trees is in the winter when the sap is lower, and then mill and kiln dry it before summer.

11 * The world's longest solid wood/lumber board {no lamination}, is a piece of Ancient Kauri {Agathis australis}. It is approximately 40 foot in length and has an estimated worth of $100,000.00.

12 * The world's widest solid wood/lumber board {no lamination}, is a piece of Figured Claro Walnut {Juglans hindsii}. At its narrowest width, it is 56 inches and at its widest width, it is 74 inches. It is 3 3/16 inches thick, 12 foot 6 inches long and has an estimated worth of $10,500.00.

13 * Osage Orange {Maclura pomifera} is the species of wood that produces the most heat when burned, approximately 33 million BTU's per 20% air dried moisture content cord. A cord of wood is 4 foot wide x 4 foot high x 8 foot long {128 cubic foot} and has on average 80 cubic foot of burnable wood, the rest is just air space.

14 * The most recently discovered tree specie is the Wollemi Pine, {Wollemia nobilis}. It was discovered in September 1994, by, a New South Wales National Parks officer named David Noble in a secluded area in the Blue Mountains of the Wollemi National Park, approximately 124 miles west of Sydney Australia. The total count of the wild mature trees is fewer than a hundred. The largest one is a little over 131 foot tall and a little short of 4 foot in diameter. The species is from the Araucariaceae family of conifers which are around 200 million years old, one of the oldest on earth.

In October of 2005, 292 five year old, 6 foot 6 inch to almost 10 foot tall cultivated Wollemi Pine trees from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney Australia, were auctioned off by Sotheby's Auction House, selling from $2000 - $7000 each, with one bidder paying $115,000 for a set of trees. The auction took in $1.17 million.

Sometime in the spring of 2006, Wollemi Pine trees ranging in height from 16 inches to a little under 5 foot will be available to the general public at reasonable prices through retail outlets.

15 * White Oak {Quercus alba} is the species of wood that is easiest to steam bend. With thin stock {1/8 inch or thinner} you can bend it, into an extremely small {tight} radius.

16 * In an article written in 2004 and featured in the weekly magazine Nature, it states that theoretically, the tallest possible height that any tree could obtain is 400-425 foot. This is because of gravity and the friction between water and the vessels of the tree through which it flows.

18 * The Ombu {Phytolacca dioica} tree, looks like a tree but is actually not a tree specie, it is a massive evergreen herb. It grows in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. The Ombu can live with very little water, can survive violent storms, insect attacks and intense heat. Its wood is so spongy it can be cut with a knife. Its trunk can have a diameter of 16 foot and the total overall height can reach 60 foot.

19 * Palm Sunday was named after the Palm tree {Phoenix dactylifera} because people took branches of Palm trees with them to greet Jesus Christ in Jerusalem {John 12:13}.

20 * The world's tallest natural uncut and living Christmas tree is 276 foot. It is a Eucalyptus {Eucalyptus regnansis} located in the Styx Valley, a tract of ancient forest in Tasmania, Australia.

To date, the world's tallest cut down and decorated Christmas tree was a Fir of 215 foot. It was used to celebrate the Christmas of 1950 in the city of Seattle Washington.

21* The world's shortest tree specie is the Dwarf {Least} Willow {Salix herbacea}. It is rare to find one more than 2 1/2 inches tall. They are also dioecious, producing both male, yellow colored and female, red colored catkins. They have been found growing on frozen tundra in the Arctic.

22 * The tree specie with the thickest bark is the Redwood {Sequoia gigantean}, its bark can be up to 24 inches thick.

23 * The tree specie with the thickest bark other than a Redwood {Sequoia gigantea}, is the Coast Douglas Fir tree {Pseudotsuga menziesii}. On the older trees, the bark can be 8 - 12 inches thick.

24 * The tree specie that produces the largest cones is the Sugar Pine {Pinus lambertiana}, ranging in size from 12 to 24 inches in length and 4 to 5 inches in diameter.

25 * Lignin is the substance found in wood that helps determine how hard the wood will be. The more Lignin present, the harder the wood and vice versa, the less present, the softer the wood.

26 * The bark of the Cork Oak {Quercus suber} is used to produce cork wine stoppers and flooring. The species grows in Northwest Africa and Southwest Europe with Algeria, Morocco, Portugal and Spain, manufacturing the majority of the world's supply.

27 * Up until a few years ago, the world's oldest living tree, a Bristlecone Pine {Pinus longaeva}, named the Methuselah was located in the Great Basin National Park, California. It is approximately 4,844 years old. It is also the tallest living {55 foot} Bristlecone Pine. Now there may be at least two trees that are older!

With John White's refined measurement techniques of today {see below}, The Lime {Tilia cordata}, in the Silkwood at Westonbirt Arboretum (Near Tetbury, Gloucester, U.K.) is probably around 6000 years old.

The Fortingall Yew {Taxus baccata}, in Glen Lyon, Perthshire, Scotland, might be as much as 9000 years old. The usual way of calculating a trees age by counting the annual rings in the trunk or by carbon dating, are not accurate when it comes to Yews because a Yews trunk tends to hollow with age, while it continues to grow by rooting its branches and wrapping them around itself. There is even documentation of the formation of aerial roots growing inside the hollow trunk. Another reason are Yews have been known to stop growing for long periods of time, {documented 325 years}, thus having no growth rings for that period.

John White's method of estimating a tree's age is by measuring its trunk circumference approximately 5 feet from ground level. He had access to and studied more than 100,000 tree measurements and multitudes of growth ring patterns from broken or cutoff stumps and concluded that growth rings are closer together on the outside portion of the stump. His technique shows that trees grow at different rates in the three phases of their lifetime, Formative, Middle Age and Senescence (Old Age}. With the evidence he has complied, tables of expected growth, relative to trunk size have been made for numerous common trees.

28 * There are two types of trees that it is impossible to tell how old they are by counting their growth rings. Trees produce growth rings because of the distinguishable temperature changes that occur over a yearly cycle causing their growth to slow down and speed up.

Trees in certain tropical regions that have a consistent year round climate where growth is ongoing do not form pronounced growth rings. Trees that are endogenous, the majorities of which is some specie of Palm tree {Arecaceae, Palmae or Palm Family), which grow by adding new material inwards, do not produce growth rings.

29 * In 1964, after his coring tool broke and getting permission from the U.S. Forest Service, a research scientist to get an accurate age measurement cut down a Bristlecone Pine {Pinus longaeva}, in Great Basin National Park, since named Prometheus! It turned out the tree was over 4,950 years old making it older than the Bristlecone Pine named Methuselah, which at the time was 4,803 years old. He had not only found the oldest living thing on the planet, but he had also killed it. A cross-section of the tree is on view at the Great Basin National Parks, visitor center in California.

30 * The world's largest divided tree leaf to date was growing on a West African Raphia Palm {Raphia vinifera}. When measured, it was approximately 82 foot in length. Note: Only a very small percentage of tree species in the world have divided leaves.

31 * The tree specie with the largest undivided leaves is the Bigleaf Magnolia {Magnolia macrophylla}. The leaves are 7 to 12 inches wide and 12 to 32 inches long.

32 * Balsa {Ochroma pyramidale} is the lightest commercially sold wood in the world or on earth. Its average specific gravity is .16. Note: There are 4 other woods that are softer, but none of them are suitable for any purpose. They are extremely weak and are not actually anything like wood as far as looks, feel and texture.

34 * The lightest American wood is Paulownia {Paulownia elongata}. Its average specific gravity is .26. It is native to Georgia.

35 * The heaviest American wood is Lignum Vitae Holywood {Guaiacum sanctum}. Its average specific gravity is 1.35. It is native to southern Florida.

36 * The name Ironwood is actually a slang term given to the hardest wood of an area, region or country. There are over 80 species of wood in the world, referred to or having the word Ironwood in them.

37 * Not all species of wood floats in water. In order to sink in water the wood has to be heavier than water with a specific gravity of more than 1.00. The 47 below sink.

51 * The town of Flagstaff Arizona was named when On July 4th 1876; lumberjacks stripped the limbs from the tallest Ponderosa Pine {Pinus ponderosa} tree and then flew the American flag from it.

52 * One acre of full-grown medium sized trees removes approximately 6 tons of pollution from the air each year.

53 * One acre of average sized trees creates enough oxygen yearly to sustain 18 people.

54 * The Oak {Quercus spp.} as of November 2004, is the official National tree of the USA as it is Germany's and Great Britain's. It is also the species of tree that is struck by lightning the most.

55 * The tree that has traveled the farthest distance to be transplanted to date is a London Plane {Platanus acerifolia}, nicknamed Plane Ace. It was moved from Belgium and was replanted in the United Kingdom in January 2001. At the time, it was approximately 60 years old and almost 58 foot tall.

56 * The tallest tree to date to be transplanted was the 30 year old Silver Birch {Betula pendula}, which was moved from William Garfit's nursery in Cambridge and was replanted at a lifestyle housing development in the south London suburb of Deptford. At the time, it was almost 64 foot tall.

57 * The Copaiba {Copaifera langsdorfii} nicknamed the Diesel Tree, grows in the Amazon of South America particularly in Brazil, and produces oleoresin called copaiba that is so much like diesel fuel, that it can be used as fuel for diesel engines. On average a mature tree can produce approximately 14 gallons of diesel per year.

58 * If you burn Ceylon Satinwood {Chloroxylon swietenia}, the fumes will put humans to sleep and kill canaries.

59 * Purpleheart {Peltogyne pubescens} wood can be made to become a darker shade of purple in two ways. One is by placing it in direct sunlight, and this will only darken the color superficially, it can be sanded off very easily. The second way, is by heating it, at say 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 8 - 12 minutes. This will darken the color, not only on the surface but also throughout the whole piece.

60 * A Balsa tree {Ochroma pyramidale}, will start rotting after only 7 years, if not cut.

61 * For every 10,000 acorns that an Oak tree {Quercus spp.} produces, only one will become a tree!

62 * The world's rarest tree is the lone Paarijat located in the Barolia village close to Ramnagar in the Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is 45 foot tall and approximately 27 foot in diameter and during the month of August blooms white flowers.

63 * The largest known Alpine Ponderosa Pine {Pinus ponderosa} forest in the world is located on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

64 * In a 25 acre plot of rain forest on the island of Borneo, approximately 700 different species of trees can be found.

65 * Approximately 1,182 different species of trees can be found in the United States.

66 * The only species of wood that can be used for holding liquids {other than acids} is White Oak {Quercus alba}. This is because the pores are filled with tyloses. This substance does not allow liquids to penetrate it. It is used to make barrels for Whiskey, Sherry and in general for ageing fine wines. Hence, one of its names is Stave Oak.

67 * The world's most massive tree trunk size ever recorded was the Lindsey Creek Coast Redwood {Sequoia sempervirens), in California. It was blown down in a storm in 1905. It had a total trunk volume of 90,000 cubic foot and a total mass weight of 3,248 short tons, just short of 6.5 million pounds. In long tons that would be a little over 7.27 million pounds.

68 * Since the early 1940's, the United States has been planting more trees than it harvests and today, has far more trees than in the 1920's.

69 * The wood species that has the most offensive odor {like rotten cabbage} after it is worked in any way, is Esia {Combretodendron macrocarpum}.

70 * The Coastal Redwood tree Sequoia sempervirens}, has winged shaped seeds. On average, the number of seeds per pound is approximately 120,000.

71 * Empress {Paulownia spp.} trees produce 3 to 4 times more oxygen than any other known tree.

72 * Cork trees {Quercus suber}, are stripped of their bark every 10 years or so and will continue to grow for 150 years or more.

73 * The Manchineel tree {Hippomane mancinella}, native to the Caribbean coast and the Florida Everglades, is the most dangerous tree specie on earth. It has had an evil reputation since the Spanish explorers first found it in the early 16th century. The tree exudes an extremely poisonous and caustic sap that was once used on the tips of arrows for poison. Contact with skin causes numerous blisters, a very small amount gets in an eye, it can blind a person permanently, and one bite of the fruit can make one deathly sick.

74 * In the Wasatch Mountains in Bryce Canyon National Park located in Utah, there exists a {clonal} tree network of 47,000 Quaking Aspen trees nicknamed Pando, (Populus tremuloides), growing from a single root system. The root system is estimated to be over 80,000 years old although the average age of the trees, measured by counting the tree rings is approximately only 130 years old. It is genetically uniform and acts as a single life form, thus changing the color and shedding the leaves of all the trees in unison. The entire system covers approximately 106 acres and weighs about 6600 tons.

75 * Rubber trees {Ficus populnea}, on the average yield about 4-5 pounds of rubber per year.

76 * A Sugar Maple tree {Acer saccharum} can produce approximately 3 gallons of sap a day. To make just one quart of maple syrup, it takes 11-13 gallons of sap.

77 * The world's largest, recorded harvested burl was a Redwood {Sequoia sempervirens}, located near Big Lagoon in Humboldt County, California in 1944. It was approximately 105 foot in circumference {over 33 foot in diameter}, nine feet tall at the crown and weighed 60 tons. Seven redwoods up to six foot in diameter were growing out of it. It took four men about a month to harvest and make it into veneer stock.

78 * In the United States alone, it takes approximately 57 million trees per year, just to produce the catalogs that are made!

79 * A solitary Norwegian Spruce tree {Picea excelsa} on Campbell Island in the Pacific is the most isolated tree on earth. The next nearest tree to it, is located on the Auckland Islands, over 120 miles away.

80 * Ginkgo {Ginko biloba} is the world's oldest living tree species. It has been found numerous times in sedimentary rocks of the Jurassic and Triassic Periods (135-210 million years ago) when dinosaurs roamed the earth. At one time, thought to be extinct, the species was proliferated from 7 trees that were discovered in an ancient monastery in China. Years later, there were some found growing wild in the isolated valleys of eastern China.

81 * It is often said, that Pink Ivorywood trees {Rhammnus zeyheri} are rarer than diamonds.

82 * To build a 2000 square foot house takes approximately 16,000 board foot of lumber {wood}. (NAHB}, National Association of Home Builders, March 2005.

83 * American Black Walnut {Juglans nigra} produces a natural chemical called Juglone that repels some garden insects and fleas. By placing small branches or leaves of it around your house in inconspicuous areas and in and around your pets sleeping area you will find your dogs and cats will have less fleas.

I have a wood collection I periodically take to schools and shop classes. Each piece is 3" x 6" x 1/2" specification size {International Wood Collectors Society}. I have cut each one from a larger piece of lumber and finished them.

Below are some of the woods from that collection. These particular woods are rarely exported from the countries they are native to.