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TOPIC: Tallest Angiosperm in Western Hemisphere?
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/3255c010f71ebf98?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Fri, Nov 9 2007 7:12 pm
From: edfrank@comcast.net


ENTS,

Here is a video of a gioant Kapok Tree in Costa Rica. It is purporptedly around 80 meters high. Biggest Kapoktree (Ceiba) Costa Rica (80m high) Corcovado NP Biggest Kapoktree (Ceiba) Costa Rica (80m high) Corcovado NP

Biggest Kapoktree (Ceiba) Costa Rica (80m high) Corcovado NP

I am not sure how they determined the height, but it is interesting. I am curious how tall it actually is. 

Ed Frank

== 2 of 4 ==
Date: Fri, Nov 9 2007 7:35 pm
From: "Paul Jost"


Ed,

My brother, Lou (http:/www.loujost.com), who used to live in Corcovado NP in
Costa Rica, claims that he thinks that they are the tallest tropical trees
that he has seen. They are the Ceiba pentandra, also known as bongo, ceiba,
ceibo, fromager, kapok, pochote, and silk cotton-tree. While in Corcovado
in the 1980's, he regularly climbed them for canopy photography. The monkey
eating Harpy eagles prefer them for nesting. So, when Mutual of Omaha's
Wild Kingdom went to Corcovado, Jim Fowler asked my brother to help them
find Harpy Eagle nests in the Kapoks via helicopter. Lou thinks that they
are the tallest trees in Ecuador, too, as well as having the greatest crown
spread and canopy volume. They dominate the forest there as huge emergents.
He received a laser and clinometer from me on his last trip home and will be
measuring them on his wilderness orchid hunts there. He commented that the
tall kapoks in Costa Rica seemed close in height to what was reported. The
ones in Ecuador were smaller, but still quite large. I haven't heard from
him yet regarding any measurements.

Paul Jost

== 3 of 4 ==
Date: Fri, Nov 9 2007 7:56 pm
From: edfrank@comcast.net

ENTS,

Actually I misattributed the info below to Dr. Sillett. I really was Dr. Bob Van Pelt who made the comment. May 14, 2006 10:06 PDT, http://www.nativetreesociety.org/fieldtrips/us_west/washington/tallest_hardwood06.htm

Dr. Sillet replied that he told BVP about the tall Eucalyptus (the colleague he refrerred to in the BVP post) and it was Santa Cruz Island not Catalina. He goes on to comment that "The tallest flowering plant in the western hemisphere known to me is 246 feet tall, a Tasmanian blue gum on Santa Cruz Island, California. The 80-m claim from Costa Rica is highly suspect. I bet the tree is less than 60 m tall".

"There has been a lot of tree measuring in Costa Rica and elsewhere in Central and South America, some of it reliable. The tallest reliably measured tree I know of in Central America is 55 m. I think it's a Ceba. In South America, there is a good record of a 60-m-tall alerce."

Ed Frank

== 4 of 4 ==
Date: Fri, Nov 9 2007 9:35 pm
From: James Parton

Ed,

I saw a picture of one ( Kapok ) at Ankur Wat in Southeast Asia that
was huge. The tree is said to not be native there but was imported
years ago.

James P.