July 3, 2026
Leaf me out of this drama
Giant trees have no trouble pumping water to top branches
Scientists say mega-trees are doing just fine — but the comments section is not
TLDR: Researchers say giant tropical trees can still get water to their top leaves even in drought, challenging the idea that extreme height makes them weaker. Commenters instantly split into camps over wording, old tree-height limits, fog-fed redwoods, and one hilariously deadpan "Happy for them."
The big plot twist here: scientists studying towering rainforest trees in Borneo say the giants are not secretly worse at getting water to their top branches, even during brutal drought. In plain English, these trees seem to have built-in tricks that let them keep moving water upward, so being extra tall is not the disaster some older ideas suggested. That matters because the tallest trees hold a shocking amount of the forest’s carbon, making them a huge deal for climate and conservation.
But the real action? The comments immediately turned into Tree Theory Fight Club. One of the loudest reactions was pure nitpicking chaos: "they are not really pumping the water?" That kicked off the classic internet ritual of people arguing over one word instead of the main finding. Then came the skeptics, with one commenter flatly saying this clashes with earlier research on really tall trees and pointing out there are basically no trees above about 130 meters, waving a redwood link like a courtroom exhibit.
Others brought side quests. One person jumped in with the fog discourse, noting some giant trees, like coastal redwoods, get a chunk of their water straight from the air via fog. Another dropped a melancholy hot take about the Nooksack Giant, lamenting that humans chopped down many of the biggest trees before science could finish arguing about them. And then, cutting through all the botanical warfare, came the driest joke in the thread: "Happy for them." Honestly? Comment of the day.
Key Points
- •A study published in *Science* found that very tall tropical Dipterocarp trees can maintain water transport to their highest branches without extra drought vulnerability caused by height.
- •The research challenges conventional theory that increasing tree height inherently limits water transport, photosynthesis and growth.
- •Researchers studied Dipterocarp trees from 7 to 71 metres tall in Malaysian Borneo and measured traits at multiple points along each tree.
- •The trees showed compensating adaptations, including wider water-carrying vessels near the ground and leaves better able to tolerate water stress.
- •Growth measurements taken before, during and after the 2023-2024 El Niño drought showed no height-related reduction in growth compared with smaller trees.