Eucalyptus regnans. Fascinated by this majestic tree i had to try and grow one of these beauties. Frost tolerance for this tree is very hard to define according to several sources. Since this tree can naturally be found in the australian mainland and in tasmania, frost tolerance is said to vary greatly depending on where the seeds come from. My research leads me to believe that eucalyptus regnans' frost tolerance can vary between -5 to -15 Celsius (23 F to 5 F) depending on provenance. The cold hardiest ones come from the coldest part of tasmania. But i am by no means very knowledgeable on this subject and maybe -15 (5 F) is a vast overstatement.

The tree that you see in this picture is 3 years old and over 5 meters tall (now let that sink in for a second, especially considering what i will tell you shortly). I never saw any tree, ever, and i planted quite a few different trees of different species, grow as fast as eucalyptus regnans. In fact this is the first time that i actually got scared of a tree that i planted, because i said to myself: "What force of nature have i unleashed here?" The first year that it was growing i managed to protect it still but then it grew so big that i couldn't do much for it anymore.

A hard winter struck and all its leaves were completely brown and burnt. I thought it was dead, but then at the beginning of july, i saw green shoots, it grew back and ended up sending a new shoot/stem out that grew 1.6 meters (5 feet) until winter.

I never had any tree grow that much for me, especially not after having suffered severe damage and only starting to grow in july.

There is reports that talk about trees felled in the past that exceeded 130 meters in height. If this were true it would make it the tallest known tree on earth. People have been sceptical about this and these "tales" are not officially accepted, so the tallest trees remain the sequioas of north america but all botanists agree that eucalyptus regnans is the tallest flowering tree in the world.


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