There are more than 60 thousand tree species on the planet. At least that's what the data released by the International Council for the Conservation of Botanic Gardens says. The information was published in the Joumal of Sustainabel Foresty and was collected by specialists from more than 500 branches of Botanical Gardens Conservation International, scattered around the world.

The creators of the list claim that about 58% of all registered trees are endemic, that is, growing in the territory of any one country. Most of them are on the verge of extinction due to human neglect, as well as climate change and various natural disasters.

Pure exoticism

Nature never ceases to amaze with her imagination, therefore it is extremely important to respect her “efforts” and think about how to preserve and increase everything that she has created.

It grows in Central and South America and belongs to the mulberry family. The local population actively uses its juice for food, which, even in spite of the tropical heat, may not spoil for a whole week. By its consistency, it resembles a viscous liquid, half composed of water and vegetable wax. The remaining 5-7% are sugars and resins. Has a slightly balsamic aroma.

"Milk" is usually diluted with water, and the proportions depend on what will be prepared from it: first courses, drinks, medicinal tinctures, and so on. When it is boiled, wax is separated on the surface, from which candles and chewing gum are made for whitening teeth.

Property of the islands of the West Indies and the Florida Peninsula. The name literally means "Indian soap". In appearance, the fruits of this plant resemble small oranges or orange plums. They cling to tree branches tightly, hanging in abundant bunches.

The Indians were well aware of its soapy properties, actively using the fruits as a kind of washing powder. Pounded in a mortar, "nuts" were mixed with water, forming a thick foam. It is interesting that things processed in such a solution do not fade or fade even after repeated washing.

Or as it is scientifically called - edible parmentiera. Homeland - Isthmus of Panama, uniting North and South America. The plant owes its name to the Spaniards, who first began to use it for household needs. Although the fruits of this amazing tree taste very pleasant too. The pulp vaguely resembles a ripe apple, loose and sweet.

The "candles" themselves look like long yellow cucumbers, and they stick out right from the trunk, rather than hanging from thin branches. Some specimens can reach up to 1 meter in length, turning into a kind of giant bean pods. In its composition, the fruits contain a large amount of various vegetable oils, which determines their widespread use as natural candles. If you insert a wick inside, then such a "lamp" will burn for a long time, brightly, evenly and without soot.

Another "tasty" creation of nature that lives in Mexico, the Mediterranean countries and the Crimean peninsula. Its botanical name is large-fruited strawberry. Belonged to the heather family. Different peoples have their own versions of the "nicknames" of this colorful plant - for example, a health resort girl or a shameless woman.

And all because the tree has the ability to change the outer layer of the bark every year, exposing the trunk. Moreover, under the influence of sunlight, the plant seems to tan, and the initially green young bark acquires a reddish-brown hue by the end of the season. The bark peeling off in rags sways in the wind, creating rustling sounds, and that tree has received another nickname - the whisper.

Strawberry fruits are delicious and juicy. Visually, they really bear a resemblance to strawberries, gathering on the branches with voluminous inflorescences. They are used to make jams, marmalades, confitures, as well as various liqueurs and wine. But the tree grows rather slowly. At ten years of age, it can rise above the ground by only 2-2.5 meters, and double in height only at 50 years.

The scientific name is brachychiton. The first association that arises at the sight of this unusual plant is a giant vase with a green crown at the top. The convex "bottle" can grow up to 10-15 meters in height, which further adds phantasmagoricity and scale to it. The diameter of the trunk, which is often three meters, is also impressive.

The tree grows predominantly in Eastern Australia and is highly revered by the local population. An indispensable help in the economy of Australian farmers are brachychiton leaves. In dry months, they go to feed livestock, but the shift, obtained from the pods, is already eaten by people - they are fried or eaten directly raw. Various dishes are prepared from the roots, and the juice downloaded from the barrel cavity is used to prepare nectars, desserts and compotes.

His homeland is the island of Saint Helena, located in the southern waters of the Atlantic. It was here that the notorious Napoleon Bonaparte languished in exile, and it is here that another unusual type of tree grows - tree daisies. It is interesting that this tree has nothing similar in taste parameters to the famous and beloved vegetable. Its leaves are not eaten at all, but outwardly they have very characteristic dense inflorescences, collected in tight "balls" at the ends of the branches.

Archaeological excavations confirm that the tree grew on the island in prehistoric times and, apparently, was used in cooking by ancient people. Today the plant belongs to the island endemics and is on the verge of extinction.

But the cabbage tree, or southern cardilla, growing in the vastness of New Zealand, is very edible. It took a fancy not only to the damp low-lying plains, but also perfectly adapted to the mountainous terrain. The leaves of this tree are high in carbohydrates, so many delicious and nutritious dishes are prepared from them. Most often, they are baked in specially equipped ovens and served with different sauces. For long-term storage, the leaves are dried in the sun and stored in closed containers.

Or, as it is also called scientifically, kigelia. The African giant got its nickname because of the original fruits hanging in thick sausages directly to the ground. Fat liver sausages reach a length of up to 60 cm, and by weight are also quite noticeable - an average of 1.5-2 kilograms. The flowers of the tree, pollinated by bats and blooming for only one night, look no less original.

Africans have long been accustomed to making the most of the sausage tree. Since fresh fruits are not consumed due to the strong laxative effect, they are soaked, fermented and subjected to other processing. To prepare various dishes, "sausages" are fried, steamed, dried and soaked in water. And they also make all kinds of alcoholic liqueurs, adding wild honey and aromatic spices. The bark and leaves are used to make potions for the bites of poisonous snakes, as well as for the treatment of rheumatism and wound healing.

Many interesting plants grow in Russia, some of which are listed in the Red Book and protected by UNESCO.

MOSCOW, September 2 - RIA Novosti. The surface of our planet contains about three trillion trees, and Russia contains about 640 billion of them, which is an absolute record and almost twice as much as Canada, which ranks second, ecologists write in an article published in the journal Nature.

"Trees store a huge amount of carbon, they are critical for maintaining the nutrient cycle in nature, they provide us with clean water and air, as well as countless other things. But when you ask someone to estimate, at least to the nearest order, how much There are trees on Earth, then almost any of us will find it difficult to answer. I myself was surprised that we are talking about a number of the order of trillions, "said Thomas Crowther from Yale University (USA).

Crowther and his colleagues accurately calculated the number of trees on modern Earth, and also found that their number on the surface of our planet has decreased by about 46% since the first foci of civilization, by analyzing satellite images and forestry data using a supercomputer.

Crowter and his colleagues got the idea to count all the trees on the planet after they were approached by representatives of the Plant for the Planet initiative, in which schoolchildren - with the support of the UN - are trying to stop global warming by planting trees.

Activists wanted to know how much they managed to replenish the number of trees on Earth, and scientists decided to help them find the answer to this question. To do this, Crowter's group combined the results of calculations carried out in more than 500 thousand corners of the earth, as well as a large number of satellite images of forests.

As it turned out, the number of trees on the planet was significantly higher than what scientists expected to see - rough estimates based only on satellite data indicated that there should be about 400 billion trees on Earth. In fact, their number exceeds three trillion, with about half of them concentrated in the top ten countries.

Russia is the undisputed leader of this rating - about 640 billion trees grow in our country alone, most of which are located in the forests of Siberia and the Far East. It is followed by Canada and Brazil - each of these countries has about 300 billion trees. In addition to them, the top ten includes the United States, China, Congo, Indonesia, Australia, Bolivia and Mexico.

The poorest country in terms of tree cover is the Arab state of Bahrain, on whose territory only about 3 thousand trees grow. He is accompanied by Qatar, Monaco, the Cocos Islands, Gibraltar and the uninhabited Paracel Islands, whose territory is contested by a number of Asian states.

Scientists, in addition to counting the number of trees themselves, also managed to calculate the rate at which their population is declining as a result of deforestation, climate change and other processes. Every year, according to calculations by Crowther and his colleagues, about 15 billion trees disappear from the face of the planet.

The calculations and recent research have revealed some rather shocking results regarding the number of trees on the planet.

About 3 trillion trees are currently growing on Earth, according to researchers at Yale University. Just imagine the number 3,000,000,000,000. Wow!

This is seven times more than previously thought! And approximately 422 trees for every person in the world. Pretty good, right? Unfortunately, the researchers also estimate that this is only half the number of trees that were on the planet before humans appeared.

So how did scientists get these numbers? A team of international researchers from 15 countries used satellite imagery, tree surveys and supercomputer technology to compare tree populations around the world per square kilometer. The results are the most comprehensive tree count ever attempted on Earth.

The study was inspired by the global youth organization Plants for the Planet, which aims to plant trees around the world to reduce the impact of climate change. They asked researchers at Yale University about the estimated global number of trees. At the time, scientists believed there were about 400 billion trees on Earth, or about 61 trees per person.

But the researchers understood that this is an approximate number, since only satellite images and an estimate of the forest area were used for the calculation, but data from the ground were not taken into account.

Thomas Crowther, a researcher in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Research and lead author of the study, put together a team that studied tree populations using not only satellites, but also tree density information through national forest inventories and tree counts.

Researchers were also able to confirm that the world's largest forested areas are in the tropics. Approximately 43 percent of the total number of trees grows in this area. Regions with the highest tree density include the subarctic regions of Russia, Scandinavia and North America.

The researchers hope that this inventory and new data on the number of trees in the world will lead to increased awareness of the role and importance of forests, especially when it comes to biodiversity and carbon storage.

According to the study, deforestation, loss of habitat and inappropriate use of forest resources lead to the loss of more than 15 billion trees a year. This affects not only their number on the planet, but also biodiversity in general.

It has been found that the density and diversity of trees decreases dramatically as the number of people on the planet increases. Natural factors such as drought, flooding and insect infestations also play a role in forest loss.

“We have almost halved the number of trees on earth, and this is clearly affecting the climate and human health,” said Thomas Crowther in a statement released by Yale University. "The study also mentions the need to put more effort into restoring the health of our planet's forests."

Until recently, the question "How many trees are there on Earth?" one could succinctly answer "a lot." But modern technology and globalization have helped to get answers to this question.

With the advent of satellite images, for the first time, experts were able to examine the planet's surface in detail for the presence of forests and gave an approximate estimate of the number of trees on our planet: about 400 billion. This data did not raise questions until a ground expedition of ecologists decided to count the number of trees in the Amazon basin. A more detailed analysis of the data showed that 390 billion trees grow in this area - almost the same as on the entire planet, based on the analysis of satellite data.

The Dutch ecologist Thomas Crowther, who, together with his colleagues, decided to finally clarify the question of how many trees are growing on the planet, could not come to terms with such a scatter of data. A group of ecologists came to the conclusion that satellite images in some regions greatly underestimate the true number of trees in a certain area of ​​the terrain, since dense crowns can hide the smaller trees growing under them, and relying on the average data for the area would mean again getting unreliable data.

The only way out, according to Thomas Crowter, was to organize a global survey of all foresters of the planet about the number of trees growing in the territories under their control, since nowadays almost all states have such a division of forest areas.
Despite the seemingly obvious solution to the issue of counting trees, it becomes clear why no one has done such a job before: Thomas Crowter and his colleagues had to collect information from 400,000 forestry enterprises around the world. The data collection took 2 years, and after calculating the scientists got a mind-boggling number of 3.04 trillion trees!

It is interesting: according to the data obtained, the largest number of trees is found in Russia, Scandinavia and North America.

It remains to understand why ecologists needed to look for the number of trees on Earth at all. To preserve the environment, of course. The fact is that every year mankind cuts down about 15 billion trees for its needs. Now, knowing the total number of trees and the rate of their felling, we will be able to better control and calculate the process of reforestation.

    There are only two types of trees:

    • conifers (propagation through cones, have needles as foliage)
    • deciduous trees (covered with thin leafy foliage)

    The rest of the classifications are already going according to some signs, for example, the shape of the crown, leaves, fruits, roots, trunk, etc.

    If we talk about the number of breeds, then there are more than 3000, there is no exact figure, since in the scientific world, breeds are often combined, separated and supplemented.

    There are 650 species of coniferous trees. They are divided into 7 families.

    There are much more deciduous trees, about ten thousand, they are divided into 60 families.

    The oldest trees are conifers.

    Trees are evergreen and deciduous.

    Tallest sequoia tree.

    Today, scientists and biologists know about 650 species of conifers, a deciduous and even uncount ;, their count goes to thousands of species.

    It should be noted that the first to appear conifers types of trees that appeared in the Carboniferous era, but deciduous breeds began to grow on Earth only tens of millions of years after the emergence of conifers.

    Conifers can be combined into 7 large families:

    • pine,
    • caparice,
    • swamp cypress,
    • yew,
    • capitate,
    • araucaria,
    • odocarp.

    There are many more deciduous trees, they were divided into 60 families.

    This is the diversity of our plant world.

    The flora of the Earth is enormous. At the moment, there are several types of trees. Conifers about 650 species, deciduous- several thousand species... There are also record holders among trees. So the highest is the sequoia, the height is 115.55 meters, the thickest is the baobab, the diameter is 15.9 meters, and the oldest tree is the spruce, which grows in the mountains of Sweden, the age is 9550 years

    Experts say that there are ... countless types of trees!

    If pine alone has 120 species - can you imagine how many there are in general, if you count both conifers and deciduous ones? Thousands and tens of thousands, even scientists do not know for sure. But the most common ones are counted. Conifers - 650 species, apple trees - 36, etc.

    According to 2015 data, there were about three trillion trees on Earth. If we talk about Russia, then 640 billion trees grow on its territory, and with this number it ranks first in the world after Canada and Brazil.

    Every goal on Earth is getting fewer trees. This figure is huge - 15 billion. Trees are cut down by humans, and they also die as a result of climate change.

    By appearance, all trees can be divided into coniferous and deciduous.

    Evergreen needles are characteristic of conifers. These trees can grow cones and juniper berries. Conifers include the following trees: pine, fir, spruce, cypress, larch, sequoia.

    Deciduous trees include maple, ash, oak and many others.

    To begin with, it should be noted that there is a division into coniferous species (the first appeared on the planet) and deciduous species.

    There are more than 650 coniferous species (seven families).

    There are several thousand deciduous species (60 families).

    There are many tree widows on earth. According to scientific data, there are about 650 widows of conifers alone on earth. And there are even more deciduous ones, about ten thousand. And so, if you look, then all trees are divided into coniferous and deciduous.

    On Earth, the very first trees appeared at the end of the Carboniferous period, by the way, they were conifers, so they are considered the oldest, deciduous trees appeared after tens of millions of years.

    There are 650 species of conifers, all of which are grouped into seven large families:

    There are many more deciduous trees, as many as several thousand species, all of them are divided into genera, the genera, in turn, were divided into families. There are 60 families of deciduous trees.

    In general, there are a huge number of tree species on Earth. But if we talk about dividing them into types, then there are two large groups in total:

    1) The first type includes conifers. Distinctive features are the presence of needles reproduction by cones.,;

    2) But to the second type - deciduous. A distinctive feature is that there are thin leaves.