DNA tests are expected to show that the giant trees on Lalashan (拉拉山) might not be as old as originally thought.
Lalashan’s “giant tree area,” which is overseen by the Forestry Bureau’s Hsinchu Forest District Office, is to be transformed into a National Forest Recreation Area by the end of the year.
The giant trees, mostly Taiwan cypress and Taiwan red cypress, grow at an altitude of 1,500m to 2,130m.
Photo courtesy of the Forestry Bureau
The Taiwan red cypress is prone to infection by a canker-causing fungi, office Deputy Director Liu Chung-hsien (劉忠憲) said, adding that infected trees fall once the pitted trunks can no longer hold up the tree’s weight or after fierce winds.
Because of this, the office commissioned the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute to examine the trees’ structure and compile a health-check profile for the giants.
The institute found holes in five of the giant trees, but testing with precision instruments proved that their trunks remained strong enough.
Giant tree No. 18, whose diameter at breast height is 18.8m, is the biggest of those tested.
Following the lead of Chiayi County’s Alishan National Forest Recreation Area, the office is having National Chiayi University conduct DNA testing on the giant trees, a process that is to take from this month to next year.
The DNA tests would help to estimate the age of the trees by closely examining their growth rings.
The 24 currently being tested are 500 to 2,000 years old, while giant tree No. 5 is 2,800 years old.
There are hundreds of unnumbered giant trees in the area.
A tree’s age is traditionally gauged by its diameter, which is unreliable as it might be the result of two trees that grew together, Liu said, adding that cypress seedlings tend to get tangled with the roots of a nearby cypress to gain a survival advantage.
The testing can distinguish between trees, and a drill is used to sample a tree’s core and estimate its age.
The testing costs NT$6,500 per tree.
Alishan (阿里山), which also has many cypress trees, released the results of its DNA tests at the beginning of this year.
The results found that giant Taiwan red cypress trees, which require dozens of people linking hands to encircle the trunk, might have many trees of different ages inside them.
The area’s Xianglin Giant Tree (香林神木) is an example of this. By its diameter, it was estimated to be 2,300 years old, but DNA testing showed it to be 626 years old.
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