Lissan House - Cookstown

The canopy covers approximately 40m in most directions. Height is hard to estimate as all the surrounding ground is sloping, but we guessed the tallest stem to be about 10m above the base. There is no central bole but rather an area about 5m across with numerous stems emerging from the ground, some running horizontally or dipping back into the ground before rising to form the canopy. There seem to be 12 separate boles arising from a central area of about 25m2, but the leaf litter, twisting branches and fused limbs make this a best guess. The central point these arise from is about 1.5m in diameter. The thickest of the boles we could see were about 1/2m in diameter and there were about 5 of these, although hard to be sure. The centre of the tree is about half way up a 30 degree slope, so one gets the impression that the tree has fallen up the slope, but this is probably because the up slope branches would touch the ground layer sooner than the down slope ones. One notable feature is that there is very little decay anywhere and we couldn’t find evidence of a rotted out centre, but this could exist below the litter layer which we didn’t disturb much, as it was full of roots. Indeed the whole tree seems in rude health. We looked for evidence of the sex of the tree, but couldn’t see any, so our guess is that it is a male, but not yet in flower. We saw no sign of arils or seeds, either on the tree or ground. Further investigation of this will have to wait until later in the year.