"I'd treat all these pre-laser measurement claims with an extremely high level of scepticism. Basically, any historical claims over 115m sould be regarded as cr@p and ignored." I understand and support such scepticism, but one needs to realize just how many giants were logged in the past 150 years to gain a better appreciation for some of these historical records. I think Van Pelt, and Dr. Al Carder of Victoria would have a slight issue with your statement. Carder grew up as a boy in Surrey, B.C. about the time when many of the last stands of 300 foot + Douglas-fir were logged. He is 98 years old, but remembers seeing many old giants well over 300 feet high. He even saw a photograph in the Vancouver Museum of a fir felled at Lynn Valley in 1902, which measured 415 ft high (including 5 ft stump), and 14 ft 3 inches in diameter at the stump-- [This was the tallest Douglas-fir officially known to him]. Other firs of between 300 and 400 feet were felled in and around Vancouver; Kerrisdale 1896, Lynn Valley 1907, and Cloverdale 1881, among others. issafish, I believe 480 feet is a bit fantastic for Douglas-fir, and represents a maximum which even the tallest historical records do not venture. Perhaps you are thinking of the "Nisqually fir" south of Tacoma, Wa. which was measured as a fallen tree at "380" ft in length with steel tape by USFS ranger Edward Tyson Allen (1875-1942) & his party in the year 1900 near the Nisqually river while conducting research on Douglas-fir stands. Your date of 1930's, however, correlates more with the "big fir" at Mineral, Wa. measured by "McCardle" (McArdle, Richard E. USFS Chief from 1952-1962) in 1924-25 and estimated from direct measurement to have stood 393 feet high. It is possible your father is recalling another fir which was previously unrecorded. As for the Eucalypt, "Centurion" I think Bob Gordon of Forestry Tasmania is by no means unwarranted in estimating the tree's top having blown out in the last 20 years. He says, "it may actually have been the tallest tree in the world at some stage." Considering it is nearly 300 ft to the original "blown" top, and at that point "roughly" 3 ft in diameter, it certainly would not be exaggerating to postulate a height of 350-365 ft originally. Historically speaking, 365 feet is a height at which a number of Eucalyptus Regs at Thorpdale, Gippsland were claimed-- many 250 or 275 ft to the first major branch!--Not to mention the record tree in Moe district situated on the William Cornthwaite property, measured at a standing height of 370 ft, and a felled length of 375 ft (via chain) compliments of George Cornthwaite, William's contract surveyor brother c. 1881-1884. Yet, 5 miles NW of Thorpdale, in the South Yarragon range, a specimen reported at 410 ft in length was claimed by a Mr. John Rollo (early land owner, miner) c. 1889. Here is a link that might be useful:

Something I find tiresome and illogical is the scientist who tries to interpret every phenomenon he/she may spend a career studying (in this case Sperry and cavitation, or what happens with water bubbles in the pipeline)in the context of competition between gymnosperms (not conifers, Cycads should also fit the generalization) and angiosperms. Reminds me of a forestry student who told Prof. S.S. Pauley at the Univ. of Minnesota many years ago, that he was quitting forestry. Why? Because he heard in class that angiosperms had successfully outcompeted conifers over the ages, and he was worried forestry would not be profitable without conifers. When a pine is growing cheek to jowl with an oak, are they re-enacting imagined Jurassic competitions -- or are they just a couple of organisms whose diverse needs are both being filled WELL ENOUGH for them to survive where they have randomly arrived? It seems to me that viewing evolution as having pitted one group of plants against another almost in a zero sum game is akin to (un?) intelligent design.

Thanks, glad to know I wasn't as mixed up as people tried to make me out to be, but I'm obviously not very good at explaining conifer seed production to others. I'll make another attempt and I'll be well aware of my audience. The adults may hear about naked seeds, but the 7 and 8 year olds will hear it a bit differently or I'll hear about nothing else the rest of the day! What would you say the pines are doing when lots of pollen is being released from the male cones? The pollen release happens in flowering plants when they are "flowering." Do the gymnosperms have a "coneing" time? I'm sure they don't since that sounds really stupid, but is there a term for the pollen releasing time?

I left out Gnetophytes, mostly because so much of the evidence seems to be contradictory. Most genetic analysis I've seen suggest Gnetophytes aren't all that close to either other gymnosperms(conifers included) nor angiosperms, but branched off from other gymnosperms well before the split between angiosperms and gymnosperms, while most morphological and fossil evidence seems to suggest an intermediate position for Gnetophytes between angiosperms and other gymnosperms. I will say, I haven't read any genetic studies more current than about 3 or 4 years old though. Good point treelover2, both Sciadopitys and Ginkgo are quite old also. But from recent studies Ginkgo is no longer considered a conifer, but it's still a gymnosperm. The latest I've heard is that Gingko is more closely related to Cycads than to conifers. But nobody has addressed which living genus is the oldest conifer? I've also heard that Cedrus has been shown to be basal in the Pinaceae which is basal to all other conifer families(basal within Pinales). Is this the current thought still or is it something else?