{"id":520984,"date":"2026-06-06T01:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T01:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/520984\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T01:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T01:01:11","slug":"after-decade-long-hunt-scientists-find-east-asias-tallest-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/520984\/","title":{"rendered":"After Decade-Long Hunt, Scientists Find East Asia\u2019s Tallest Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deep in the mountains of northern Taiwan, a towering Taiwania cryptomerioides<\/a> \u2014 a large coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae<\/a> whose ancestors date back 100 million years \u2014 has been confirmed as the tallest known tree in East Asia.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Heaven Sword tree. Image credit: Chia-Chun Hsu et al., doi: 10.3389\/ffgc.2026.1746112.<\/p>\n

Nicknamed the Heaven Sword, the tree stands 84.1 m tall in the Sheshan range in northern Taiwan.<\/p>\n

The finding was verified in 2023 by a climber who scaled its trunk and dropped a tape measure from the crown.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaiwan, historically known as Formosa, holds a secret deep within its rugged interior: it is one of the rare locations on our planet capable of supporting \u2018giant\u2019 trees \u2014 specimens that tower over 80 m in height,\u201d said Dr. Rebecca Chia-Chun Hsu from the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute and colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince 2014, our dedicated group, the \u2018Taiwan tree seekers,\u2019 has been on a mission to locate and document these sky-piercing giants.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team is a unique blend of professional tree climbers, ecologists, geologists, and remote sensing specialists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2023, this persistence paid off: we located the reigning champion of the island\u2019s forests: an 84.1-m-tall Taiwania cryptomerioides.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis massive tree currently holds the title of the tallest tree in all of East Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo the Indigenous Rukai people, these gargantuan firs are known by a much more poetic name, \u2018The tree that hits the Moon\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of their project, the researchers first built a national canopy map using airborne laser scanning data, initially flagging 57,065 candidate trees.<\/p>\n

Steep cliffs caused rampant false positives: in one striking example, a tree barely 25 m tall registered as 90 m because it sat atop a sheer cliff face.<\/p>\n

To sort through tens of thousands of candidates, they did something unusual: they asked the public for help.<\/p>\n

Some 372 online volunteers examined laser-scan profile images of trees, winnowing the list down to 4,736 serious candidates, eliminating 92% of the manual verification work that would otherwise have fallen to specialists.<\/p>\n

The final tally mapped 941 giant trees across the island, all taller than 65 m, clustered in montane cloud forests at elevations between 1,500 and 2,500 m.<\/p>\n

Nine of the ten tallest exceeded 70 m, and all were Taiwania cryptomerioides.<\/p>\n

The scientists warn that climate change is pushing cloud bases higher in Taiwan\u2019s mountains, threatening forests that giant trees depend on for moisture.<\/p>\n

Typhoon intensity hitting the island has risen 35% over the past four decades, and storm-driven floods and landslides pose an acute threat to trees that grow precisely in steep river valleys.<\/p>\n

Illegal logging of old-growth trees was also discovered during the expeditions, even within protected areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cLarge, old trees play a disproportionately significant role in forest ecosystems,\u201d the authors said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are massive carbon stores; a single giant tree can sequester an amount of carbon equivalent to an entire stand of mid-sized trees.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey also provide critical, irreplaceable habitats and alter microclimates, thereby supporting forest biodiversity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite their size, these giants are uniquely vulnerable to climate change,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDirect human activity also remains a threat. Although over 95% of the identified giant trees fall within protected areas, their remote locations make them difficult to monitor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring our ground expeditions, we discovered several cases of illegal poaching of old-growth trees.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis highlights that official protection, while essential, is insufficient without broader community vigilance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s paper<\/a> appears in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Rebecca Chia-Chun Hsu et al. 2026. The journey of finding the tallest tree in Formosa Taiwan. Front. For. Glob. Change 9; doi: 10.3389\/ffgc.2026.1746112<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deep in the mountains of northern Taiwan, a towering Taiwania cryptomerioides \u2014 a large coniferous tree in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[2786,225145,225146,22082,18,21297,225147,19,17,133,380,225148,225149,14529],"class_list":["post-520984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-asia","tag-cupressaceae","tag-cypress","tag-east-asia","tag-eire","tag-fir","tag-heaven-sword","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-taiwan","tag-taiwania","tag-taiwania-cryptomerioides","tag-tree"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116700465562292524","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}