Talk:Eucalyptus regnans
From Academic Kids
The link to Leadbeater's possum leads to the generic possum page at present. This is just a reminder to update it if and when a Leadbeater's possum page is created. Tannin
Should this page not identify Mountain Ash as the common name for trees of the (insert taxon) Sorbus? Eucalyptus Regnans (the Australian Mountain Ash) is not a Sorbus, it merely has a resemblance to one. Source David Attenborough's The Private Life of Plants. -- Alan Peakall 16:02 30 May 2003 (UTC)
If I remember correctly, Alan, there are three different trees called "Mountain Ash", and two of them are not Sorbus species. Common names of trees are bloody hopeless, they conflict all over the place. It's a silly name anyway - they don't look remotely like any sort of (Sorbus) ash I ever saw, and even the timber they produce is only very vaguely ash-like. But there you go - everyone calls them "Mountain Ash" and I dare say they always will. Tannin 16:16 30 May 2003 (UTC)
- Thanks for the response, Tannin. Once I took a closer look, I saw that you had been around the block already on this one. The resemblance may well be imaginary as opposed to a case of convergent evolution. I see that you are returning to Plan A as I write. Excellent work on Race, by the way. It precisely answers the question that I posed to SLR before subspecies was brought into existence. -- Alan Peakall 16:50 30 May 2003 (UTC)
Can anyone remember which is the third "Mountain Ash" tree? There is a third one, I recall. Or should I hit Google for it? Tannin 07:25 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Seen in The Observer, 1 June 2003: tallest living mountain ash, 79m accidentally damaged: http://observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,968101,00.html
Interesting link, Tarquin, thankyou. It should have been dated April 1st, though. Mountain Ash is not the world's tallest tree and never has been (unless you believe some rather questionable old stories from the 19th century in Victoria, and don't believe stories of the same age and type about Douglas Fir from Canada). A fair number of Coast Redwoods are comfortably bigger than the largest known Mountain Ash. And, in any case, 79 metres is only a tiddler: 90 metres is a big one. There are thousands of Mountain Ash taller than 79 metres, and indeed a good many other tall Eucalptus species: Alpine Ash, Messmate Stringybark and Mana Gum. By the way, they reach their maximum height, if my memory is to be trusted, at 100 to 200 years, and are normally considerably smaller by the time they reach 300 or 350. I presume that there is some truth to the story somewhere, but the Observer ought to be able to do better than that. They could start by covering the Tasmanian government's recent decision to allow logging to a tract of very rare old growth broadleaf rainforest. Tannin 22:01 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- This tree reported in the news was not the tallest, but was probably one of the oldest and largest in trunk diameter; in that sense it was likely due for a natural fire anyway. But still an individual tragedy in the loss of an old-growth tree. Agreed about the questionability of the old 19th century claims; the 100-130m trees belong in the realm of the drop bear. - MPF 14:27, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
