Talk:Fortingall Yew

Biggest in Europe
Does it make sense to call a tree that is on an island off the coast of Europe the largest tree in Europe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.107.0.96 (talk) 17:38, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Which continent do you suggest britian belongs to? Stupidstudent (talk) 18:19, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Status as oldest
The "oldest in Europe" conflicts with Llangernyw Yew which is dated at 4-5,000 years. -- Shimmin Beg (talk) 16:08, 27 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I may have missed it, but unfortunately they don't seem to be any credible citations on that article confirming this date or otherwise. Ben   Mac  Dui  16:45, 27 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with Shimmin Beg - there are references on the Llangernyw Yew page, albeit not as footnotes in the main text. There is also a reference in the text to dating done by the RBS and a plaque confirming this.  Giford (talk) 23:09, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Age estimates
I checked the Bevan-Jones book in the library again and it states that the the tree "has had many estimates and measurements" and that it was "Britain's largest surviving measured specimen" and "certainly one of the oldest yews ever recorded in Britain and is considered by many experts to be 2,000-3,000 years old." The author adds: "it may, however, represent a remnant of an early saint cell, of the sixth century, making the tree around 1,500 years old" and "evidence of early saint activity has been recorded here, including a probable eight century font". Then follows an analysis of past estimates by De Candolle, Dr Neill, R. Christison, C. T. Ramage, and more, which results in the following: "De Candolle was a good scientist. Most modern dating evidence from contemporary researchers to some extend supports his estimates of growth, in that A. Mitchell, A. Meredith and others agreed that the Fortingall Yew could exceed two thousand years growth. The yew may equally be a veteran remnant of a post-Roman Christian heritage on the site. This would make the yew at least 1,400 years old". It finishes with the statement that the tree is "perhaps the oldest tree in Europe". There is no discussion of the 5,000 years in Hageneder. I'm not happy that this is in the text, it is so inconsistent with all the estimates given in the Bevan-Jones overview that I wonder whether it's not a mistake or inflation. Hekerui (talk) 11:36, 30 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Fair enough - I think its worth mentioning but it could be placed in a note rather than in the main text. I just found a snippet to add about a cleric of the church. The Fortingall article section on the tree could do with a tidy up as well.  Ben   Mac  Dui

Categorization
I had removed Flora of Scotland as a category because the category composition made clear that it was intended for species and articles on flora, not specific plants. I think it should be removed again. Hekerui (talk) 08:47, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The category makes no such claim and the composition includes Meikleour Beech Hedges, as it would any other notable specimens - unless and until they are sufficient in number to have their own sub-cat. Do you have an alternative suggestion? Ben   Mac  Dui  09:00, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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Invisible sources
There are lots of sources for the article, especially for the historic claims about the tree, but all the references point not to the actual source but, for example, to the Wikipedia article for the person who wrote the original source.

I thought that there was a way to include sources for documents and books that aren't available on the internet, so it shouldn't have been difficult for the original editor who included a source to do it properly so that we can all see something verifiable if we take the trouble to. But the way it is now, it's not worth much because the source could be something totally imaginary, and how would we know? It might as well have no source or reference at all. For example, what is at present #4, which between the ref and /ref, reads:
 * Hon. Daines Barrington, Transactions of the Royal Society, 1769.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:EA01:1090:103F:423A:94D3:9140 (talk) 09:24, 10 March 2019 (UTC)