Public - partial access (e.g. next to footpath or road)
Surroundings:
Field
Comments ({{comments.length}})(4)
In 1776 Peter Collinson, then Britain's leading dendrologist, described the Tortworth chestnut as "the largest tree in England, being 52 feet (15.8 metres) around."
Someone needs to go and verify this tree ASAP
There is an entry for this tree on the English Heritage Pastscape site.
http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=205374
I would suggest the "Tree form" is, through time, a sequence of a Maiden, naturally Layered, Phoenix - and lastly a Multistemmed marvel ! I emphasise the phoenix aspect where all the surrounding stems will be genetically derived from and identical to the central bole. John Harper 26.12.2009
Dendrochronological analysis of the Tortworth Chestnut (Jarman et al. 2017 and 2018b) gave a ‘regeneration’ date of one of the collapsed and re-grown main boughs as 1827; a section from a second collapsed bough (still alive in 2018) was dated to 1938, but the position of the section 18 metres ‘up’ from the base of the bough indicated the same date of collapse as the first bough. DNA analysis of all the collapsed and regenerated boughs of the Tortworth Chestnut provided twenty-one identical matches with the main tree, so none was from separate seed regeneration. Previous writers (Rudder 1779; Smollett 1785; Loudon 1838) described the Tortworth tree as formed of at least four main trees, surrounded by regenerating trees coming from its seed: the DNA evidence rejects those interpretations. The Tortworth Chestnut has evidently been a single ancient tree in a formal garden close to a manor-house since at least the seventeenth century: its retention as a derelict tree within a formal garden
In 1776 Peter Collinson, then Britain's leading dendrologist, described the Tortworth chestnut as "the largest tree in England, being 52 feet (15.8 metres) around." Someone needs to go and verify this tree ASAP
There is an entry for this tree on the English Heritage Pastscape site. http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=205374
I would suggest the "Tree form" is, through time, a sequence of a Maiden, naturally Layered, Phoenix - and lastly a Multistemmed marvel ! I emphasise the phoenix aspect where all the surrounding stems will be genetically derived from and identical to the central bole. John Harper 26.12.2009
Dendrochronological analysis of the Tortworth Chestnut (Jarman et al. 2017 and 2018b) gave a ‘regeneration’ date of one of the collapsed and re-grown main boughs as 1827; a section from a second collapsed bough (still alive in 2018) was dated to 1938, but the position of the section 18 metres ‘up’ from the base of the bough indicated the same date of collapse as the first bough. DNA analysis of all the collapsed and regenerated boughs of the Tortworth Chestnut provided twenty-one identical matches with the main tree, so none was from separate seed regeneration. Previous writers (Rudder 1779; Smollett 1785; Loudon 1838) described the Tortworth tree as formed of at least four main trees, surrounded by regenerating trees coming from its seed: the DNA evidence rejects those interpretations. The Tortworth Chestnut has evidently been a single ancient tree in a formal garden close to a manor-house since at least the seventeenth century: its retention as a derelict tree within a formal garden