A Temperate Deciduous Monster--Too Big?

What is a flower or shrub back home is a tree in an alternate Earth, and vice versa. That is something worth exploring.

For example, Taraxacum officinale can grow from stems typically up to 5-40 centimeters tall, but sometimes up to 70 centimeters back home. In this alternate Earth, it grows from trunks up to 5-40 meters tall, sometimes 70. Bellis, the daisy genus, grows from 5-20 centimeters (2-8 inches) back home, whereas it grows from 5-20 meters (16-65.6 feet) in this alternate Earth. Dahlia, on this alternate Earth, grows from 6-30 meters (19.7-98.4 feet) tall. Gaillardia, the blanket flower, reaches a maximum height around 80 meters (262 feet!)

This all sounds amazing, but there is a snag, pun intended--such massive heights back home are usually found in rainforests, tropical or temperate. In temperate rainforests, it is usually the conifers that reach such heights. In an ordinary temperate forest, like in New York, Maine, France, Germany or even Poland's famous Białowieża Forest, can broad-leaved angiosperms reach such monstrous heights? Or would certain environmental factors make this unlikely?

posted almost 6 years ago

JohnWDailey‭

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