If you consider yourself a tree-hugger you might wanna think about grabbing an army of your tree-huggin’ friends to assist you in quite possibly the world’s greatest group hug with the biggest trees in the world by volume; which—now that I mention it—doesn’t seem like a bad idea… It could even land me my “15 minutes of fame” on TV or at least YouTube. Hey, with the stuff folks seem to go nuts over these days—it’s possible! Anyone wanna go hug some big trees with me? Anyone? …Okay, so it might take me a bit to get enough people to jump on that bandwagon with me, so until then, I’m just gonna talk up these tree-mendous trees.
I’ve been on a bit of a Bob Ross kick at home and ya know, it really is no wonder why he put so many of these statuesque marvels on canvas. Aside from their captivating and unprecedented beauty, trees have an abundance of imperative uses and quite frankly, our lives and the world we live in just wouldn’t be possible without them in it! Everyone knows that they provide us with oxygen as well as stabilizing the air and soil. Of course, without them, we would have to find alternative resources for everyday essentials considering so many different products that we own come from trees. The newspapers and magazines we read; the cardboard boxes that most of our food is packaged in; even as I sit here typing away about trees, the desk that houses my computer along with some important documents (ahem! Printed on paper which came from a tree.), and a few dozen books (hello! More tree products) is made of wood. Nothing fancy, like some of the pieces of furniture you would find on one of our other lists paying tribute to trees: 15 Most Expensive Wood for Furniture in the World, but it still serves its purpose nonetheless. I could go on and on about all the different products that we use that we may not even realize come from trees; such as, chewing gum, toothpaste, soap, and even certain cosmetic and medicinal products, but that is another list in itself; and in this list, I am focusing on the size of the biggest trees in the world by volume.
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There are a handful of trees in my backyard, but one, in particular, stands out from the rest. It towers over all of the trees that surround it and even my two-story tobacco barn that stands in front of it, and I often can’t help but admire its magnificence and wonder how long it’s been standing. It’s crazy to think that the trees on this list will put that massive tree in my backyard to shame. Many of them have been around for hundreds if not THOUSANDS of years and have had a lot more time to grow into the monuments they have become known to be. Which is actually one thing that all of the trees I will mention have in common aside from being, well, huge. They are all also, very old.
Before I get started, obviously I’d like to get into what went into determining the volume of the largest trees in the world. Now, I assumed that I could just use the genius that got me into advanced math classes in high school to determine a basic formula for calculating the volume of a tree. I figured since trees are somewhat cylindrical in shape that I could essentially use the same formula I would use to find the volume of a cylinder. I quickly found that coming up with the volume of a tree can be much more complicated than just finding the area and height of the tree and multiplying the two numbers together to get its volume. I was, however, on the right path, as there is a simple method in figuring out the volume of a tree where you do, in fact, make the assumption of the trunk being cylindrical and in turn, use the formula for calculating the volume of a cylinder to come up with the volume of the tree. But, much like us, no two trees are alike, and their range of different shapes and sizes is much more vast than our basic body shapes and sizes. However, all of the trees that make up the 11 biggest trees in the world by volume have that familiar tree shape, so lucky for me (and you, of course), I don’t have to get into the more involved approach of finding their volume. I will, however, point out that while there are a number of different ways one might come up with the height of any given tree, there is a pretty standard way to measure its girth (or circumference), and that is, quite simply, to take the measurement of the trunk at about four to five feet above ground level. This is because it is noted that most trees are thicker at the base and tend to gradually taper as you go up, so measuring the trunk’s girth at breast level is more accurate than taking a measurement right at the base. Luckly for us we found that data on Monumental Trees. Easy-peasy, right? Now, onto our biggest trees in the world by volume!
