If you live in the Northwest, you’ve seen a million Doug firs. For centuries, they’ve been crucial to the Northwest way of life. And if you celebrate Christmas, you might bring one into your home every year. But Doug firs are far more than just pretty scenery: they’re remarkable — once the world’s tallest trees and capable of communication.
This Oregon Public Broadcasting video explains How Douglas Fir Trees Shaped The Northwest. Learn more about the known history of Doug fir trees (Pseudotsuga menziesii), how tall they might be able to get, and how they use an underground fungal network to send messages and nutrients to other trees.
Learn more about their size from Wikipedia:
Coast Douglas-fir is the second-tallest conifer in the world (after coast redwood), and the third-tallest of all trees, (after Eucalyptus regnans)…
The tallest living specimen is the Doerner Fir, (previously known as the Brummit fir), 99.76 m (327 ft 4 in) tall, at East Fork Brummit Creek in Coos County, Oregon, the stoutest is the Queets Fir, 4.85 m (15 ft 11 in) diameter, in the Queets River valley, Olympic National Park, Washington. Coast Douglas-fir commonly lives more than 500 years and occasionally more than 1,000 years.
Related reading and watching: Finding Oregon’s Tallest Trees Gets Help From Technology and Scottish botanist David Douglas.
Watch these tree videos on TKSST next:
• How Do Trees Transport Water from Roots to Leaves?
• How tall can a tree grow?
• Climbing & Measuring Redwood Giants with Stephen Sillett
• The Wood Wide Web: How trees secretly talk to and share with each other
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