List of individual trees
193 points
13 hours ago
| 21 comments
| en.wikipedia.org
| HN
rhplus
9 minutes ago
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Humans, man.

The Tree of Ténéré was a solitary acacia that was once considered the most isolated tree on Earth. It was a landmark on caravan routes through the Ténéré region of the Sahara Desert in northeast Niger, so well known that it and the Lost Tree to the north are the only trees to be shown on a map at a scale of 1:4,000,000. The tree is estimated to have existed for approximately 300 years until it was knocked down in 1973 by a drunk truck driver.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_T%C3%A9n%C3%A9r%C3%A9

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OisinMoran
1 hour ago
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Delighted to see my local one in there, with a description reading like it was written by Douglas Adams.

“The Hungry Tree is an otherwise unremarkable specimen of the London plane, which has become known for having partially consumed a nearby park bench.”

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y-curious
55 minutes ago
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I googled it and found that it has a more comprehensive Wikipedia article than some prominent historical figures:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_Tree

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kelseyfrog
6 hours ago
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cbdevidal
5 hours ago
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My dumb butt thought it was gonna be a list of every tree in the world, all eight gazillion of them
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sph
3 hours ago
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I did a search, there are an estimated 3 trillion trees in the world; somehow that's much fewer than I expected.
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dspillett
3 hours ago
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It is actually three treellion.

Even nature likes a terrible pun.

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moi2388
4 hours ago
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This is a map of all trees in the Netherlands

https://boomregister.nl/overzichtskaart-van-de-bomen-in-nede...

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sph
3 hours ago
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I loathe these stupid widgets that show a blank map as soon as you zoom out a little (past the 1000m scale in this case). How can you fail so hard at your only job?
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autoexec
3 hours ago
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I'm surprised that the Katamari games include a longer list of physical objects than wikipedia.
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croisillon
5 hours ago
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The list of animals has dolphins and birds but not humans?
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tobr
4 hours ago
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Consistent with this definition of ”animal” - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/animal#English:_any_nonhuman_...
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OtherShrezzing
4 hours ago
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It’s Wikipedia. Make the change you want to see in the page.
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nephihaha
1 hour ago
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"It’s Wikipedia. Make the change you want to see in the page."

If it allows you to edit it in the first place or isn't reverted within five minutes.

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y-curious
49 minutes ago
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They have strict rules, but I’ve had no issues editing articles after my first error. It’s certainly not like posting an answer on Stack Overflow, where you will be downvoted and flamed for a correct-but-suboptimal answer.
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rendall
4 hours ago
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With respect, that is naive. To demonstrate, create a new account and go ahead and make that change. It will be reverted. Wikipedia is not the democratic free-for-all it once was.

If you do perform that experiment and I am wrong, please come back and let us know.

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TuringTest
4 hours ago
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Wikipedia is and has always been a wiki; reverting bad or controversial edits has always been expected from day one.

Also Wikipedia has developed an editorial line of its own, so it's normal that edits that go against the line will be put in question; if that happens to you, you're expected to collaborate in the talk pages to express your intent for the changes, and possibly get recommendations on how to tweak it so that it sticks.

It also happens that most of contributions by first timers are indistinguishable from vandalism or spam; those are so obvious that an automated bot is able to recognize them and revert them without human supervision, with a very high success rate.

However if those first contributions are genuinely useful to the encyclopedia, such as adding high quality references for an unverified claim, correcting typos, or removing obvious vandalism that slipped through the cracks, it's much more likely that the edits will stay; go ahead and try that experiment and tell us how it went.

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nephihaha
1 hour ago
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There are plenty of "bad and controversial edits" on Wikipedia, just some are more acceptable than others. Wikipedia is an oligarchy.
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ejolto
4 hours ago
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I’m here to let you know you are wrong.

I made an anonymous edit to the Wikipedia page of one of Hemingways short stories three years ago, and my edit is still there.

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nephihaha
1 hour ago
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You were lucky that you could edit in the first place. Most anonymous editors are blocked before they make an edit due to shared IPs.
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throw-qqqqq
3 hours ago
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I’ve made several edits to wiki-pages without even having an account. A few got reverted, most stayed.

Some pages/topics are more open to changes than others, that much is true.

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smusamashah
3 hours ago
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nephihaha
1 hour ago
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The term "animal" refers to non-human creatures.
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pluralmonad
27 minutes ago
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Not when I use the word. Animals are the big creatures that move around. Guess I'm just a preschooler.
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arethuza
1 hour ago
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My own favourite - the Last Ent of Affric:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Ent_of_Affric

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einpoklum
1 hour ago
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TIL: The UK designates "trees of special national interest", and has a "Tree of the Year" competition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_the_Year_(United_Kingd...

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mkl
7 hours ago
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cl3misch
6 hours ago
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While this is interesting and impressive, I kinda relate more to OP's link of more "normal" trees. Going through the list gives me a feeling how many cool trees there are all over the place.
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bhasi
4 hours ago
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I've been to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine forest in Inyo County, CA where the Methuselah tree lives. Though I didn't get to see that specific tree because the sun was fast setting and I wasn't prepared to hike around in darkness, I had a pretty amazing experience being the presence of 4000- and 5000-year old trees.
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esperent
6 hours ago
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> A tree located in an established gay cruising area, noted for its slender trunk which facilitates gay sex.

The mind boggles haha

I can't believe this got past the Wikipedia editors.

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317070
5 hours ago
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Why would it have been stopped? I don't see anything non-factual, and I regularly pass by that tree. It is well known and referenced [1].

[1] https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/12/07/hampstead-heaths-...

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y-curious
44 minutes ago
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How does this work, practically, since it’s so notorious? Is there a queue of dudes waiting to get access to this “private” tree?
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esperent
2 hours ago
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"slender trunk which facilitates gay sex"

You don't see the euphemism?

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wongarsu
26 minutes ago
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I don't see it. It's a tree that people have sex on. Gay sex, though from the looks of it the tree would be equally well suited for lesbian or straight sex. Presumably one person lies on their stomach on the trunk while one or more people perform penetrative acts. Where is the euphemism? And what is weird about listing this on wikipedia?
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isoprophlex
5 hours ago
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    "This tree, I tell you, has a slutty little back arch".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuck_Tree

Incredible

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riffraff
5 hours ago
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I read that and assumed this must be some joke article and/or art stunt. After reading the article and linked sources, I'm still not sure that ain't true.
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saberience
1 hour ago
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No it's definitely a real tree and not a joke article...

https://www.vice.com/en/article/cruising-spots-uk-london-201...

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anotherblue
5 hours ago
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Wikipedia is not censored.
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esperent
2 hours ago
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No, but editors there are quite notorious for lacking a sense of humor. I'm not surprised it's listed, I'm surprised that particular euphemistic description remains.
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NicuCalcea
2 hours ago
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It's a pretty notorious tree in London, don't see a reason why it wouldn't be included.
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MeteorMarc
6 hours ago
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This moves me. It affirms that grown trees have tremendous personality.
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rplnt
6 hours ago
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However obscure this page might be, I was there just a few days ago. Clicked on it from this article about a tree that was cut down, and it was apparently a big thing in the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycamore_Gap_tree
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domh
5 hours ago
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This was huge news in the UK when it happened. Massive public uproar for an illegal felling. The perpetrators were both jailed: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6295zv9101o
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jcul
4 hours ago
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I can understand the outrage. Was there any motivation given for why they cut it down? Just vandalism?
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nephihaha
1 hour ago
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I've been following the story for a while and it has never been adequately explained by mainstream media. Consider this... They drove for over an hour in the middle of the night in foul weather to a remote location to cut down a particular tree. That suggests some preplanning.
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domh
3 hours ago
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Yeah I think so. Attention seeking, maybe something to do with a planning application to live somewhere being rejected too: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn811px4m7mo

Honestly it's my first time looking at the story for a while! I just knew they got jail time for it.

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comrade1234
5 hours ago
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"What are you in for?"
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vanderZwan
3 hours ago
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I remember that incident! As a side-effect I discovered that beautiful panorama picture[0], which was perfect for my two-monitors-plus-laptop-screen set-up aside from the low resolution, so I used my stippling notebook[1] to hide that a little bit[2]. I could probably tweak the stippling settings a bit to have prettier output, but it's been my wallpaper for over two years now.

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Sycamore...

[1] https://observablehq.com/@jobleonard/a-fast-colored-stipple-...

[2] https://blindedcyclops.neocities.org/sycamore_gap_tree_pano/... https://blindedcyclops.neocities.org/sycamore_gap_tree_pano/... https://blindedcyclops.neocities.org/sycamore_gap_tree_pano/...

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divbzero
6 hours ago
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One of Wikipedia’s greatest contributions is collecting records like this that wouldn’t appear in a traditional encyclopedia.
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fudgybiscuits
5 hours ago
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Yeah you can bet the Fuck Tree wouldn't make it into any encyclopedia.
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y-curious
37 minutes ago
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Have you considered that you just aren’t reading the cool encyclopedias?
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rmunn
6 hours ago
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But does the article include a handy list of How to Recognise Different Types of Trees from Quite a Long Way Away?
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felineflock
3 hours ago
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I clicked expecting some catalog of data structures but it was a pleasant surprise.
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kilroy123
3 hours ago
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Slightly off topic but does anyone know where to get a huge dataset of tree images? I'm talking millions.
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einpoklum
1 hour ago
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And in contrast to that, have a look at home many trees we are losing every year:

https://ourworldindata.org/deforestation

some of which could have made it to this list of special trees :-(

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globular-toast
6 hours ago
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I noticed the "bicycle tree" in Scotland which has encapsulated a bicycle amongst other things as it has grown. It reminded me of a very old graveyard I would play in as a kid. The oldest side was all old trees and one day I noticed one of the trees had a couple of gravestones up in its boughs. I always wondered if these were really lifted up there by the tree and if so whether that's unusual.
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rplnt
6 hours ago
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I would check here for examples: https://old.reddit.com/r/TreesSuckingOnThings/
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hahahahhaah
4 hours ago
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Includes Martin Fowler's strangler fig. Yes it is a design pattern and a tree.
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tectonic
4 hours ago
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fuzztester
5 hours ago
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Adyar banyan tree in Chennai is missing.

https://www.ts-adyar.org/banyan-tree

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campital
6 hours ago
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Is this list comprehensive?
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nephihaha
1 hour ago
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It can never be. There are many notable trees, but some of them will never have a Wikipedia article.
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adzm
6 hours ago
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No, but you can add anything missing if you have a source!
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joshu
4 hours ago
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In the heart of Silicon Valley, El Palo Alto: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Palo_Alto
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quijoteuniv
5 hours ago
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Nice! Includes Mythological and religious trees!
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kreeben
4 hours ago
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Why is Pippi Longstocking's "soda pop tree" not on the list? It's dying and the whole of Sweden are freaking out. We're putting tax payer money on solving its disease. We're developing a vaccine to try and save it for gods sake. Yes, this is a very LOL type of situation to the rest of the world, I know that. But it's not a laughing matter in Sweden: https://www.slu.se/nyheter/2025/11/pippis-sockerdrickstrad-r...
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thinkingemote
3 hours ago
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Does the tree have a Wikipedia article about it? If not you can add it. If it does, you can add it to the list.

Wikipedia allows anyone to edit and contribute! (although many users don't know that and a smaller than miniscule amount of users actually do.)

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