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For several years, I have complied facts on wood and trees. Here are 79 that I will share with you. There are 26 on this page, 26 on Wood & Facts, Facts About Wood & Trees Part 1 and 27 on Wood & Facts, Facts About Wood & Trees Part 3. I add to and update it frequently. Some are pretty astounding.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* The world's tallest living standing tree, a Redwood {Sequoia gigantea}, is in Humboldt State Redwood Park California. Last measured in 2005, it was 370 foot 2 inches {37 stories} tall, or approximately 5 stories higher than the Statue of Liberty.

* The world's tallest living standing tree, other than a Redwood {Sequoia gigantea}, is a 329 foot high Douglas Fir {Pseudotsuga taxifolia}, in Coos Bay, Oregon. It would make more than 60,000 board feet of lumber.

* The tree with the widest tree trunk in the world 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. It is approximately 37 foot 6 inches in diameter {wide}, approximately 141 foot tall and over 2000 years old.

Because the trunk of the tree is not circular in shape but in reality has an distorted and irregular shape, you can't multiply the diameter by approximately 3.14 {pie} and come up with its true approximate circumference {girth}.

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.

* 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}.

* The world's slowest growing tree is a White Cedar {Thuja occidentalis}, located in Canada. After 155 years, it grew to a height of 4 inches and weighed only 6/10th of an ounce. The tree can be found on a cliffside in the Canadian Great Lakes area.

* The world's largest forest is in northern Russia. It is located between 55 degrees North Latitude and the Arctic Circle {Siberia}. It is a coniferous forest. It covers a total area of 2.7 billion acres.

* The world's fastest growing specie of tree, is the Empress {Paulownia spp.}. This tree can grow up to 20 feet the first year and some have been documented growing 12 inches in 21 days!

* The world's fastest recorded growth of a tree was an Albasia {Albizzia falcate} located in Sabah, Malaysia in the year 1974. It grew, 35 foot 3 inches in approximately 13 months. That would be averaging about 1 1/10 inch per day.

* The tree with the world's largest canopy/crown {spread of its branches} is the great Banyan {Ficus bengalensis}, in the Indian Botanical Garden, Calcutta, India. It has over 1,700 prop supporting roots and dates back to 1787. The canopy/crown has a circumference of 1,350 foot, approximately 430 foot wide, almost 1 1/2 football fields.

* The world's largest living tree, and this is because of its volume is the General Sherman Giant Sequoia {Sequoia gigantea}, located in Sequoia National Park, in California. It is believed to be approximately 2,100 years old. It weighs a little over 2.7 million pounds and its largest branch is 6 foot 9 1/2 inches in diameter. At 120 foot above the ground, its trunk is still over 17 feet in diameter. It is estimated that it contains 600,000 board foot of lumber. Its trunk by itself, weighs approximately 1400 tons. Its champion tree score is 1321 points.

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