Menara is the name of a yellow meranti (''

Richetia faguetiana ''Richetia faguetiana'' is a species of plant in the Family (biology), family Dipterocarpaceae. Along with other species in the genus ''Richetia'', it is also known as the ''yellow meranti.'' It is native to Borneo, the Malay Peninsula, and Thail ...

'') tree found in the

Danum Valley Conservation Area Danum Valley Conservation Area is a tract of relatively undisturbed Borneo lowland rain forests, lowland dipterocarp forest in Sabah, Malaysia. It has an extensive diversity of tropical flora and fauna, including species such as the rare ...

, in

Sabah Sabah () is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah has land borders with the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and Indonesia's North Kalima ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

. It was measured at from the average ground level at the base of the tree, and from the lowest point on the trunk, which ranks it as the world's tallest known living

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

and was the tallest known tree on the

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

n continent until a taller South Tibetan cypress was found in the

Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon The Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon, also known as the Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon, the Tsangpo Canyon, the Brahmaputra Canyon or the Tsangpo Gorge (), is a canyon along the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet Autonomous Region, China. It is the deepes ...

in 2023. The research team, working with Southeast Asia Rainforest Research Partnership (SEARRP), named the tree "Menara", which means "tower" in the

Malay language Malay ( , ; , Jawi alphabet, Jawi: ) is an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language spoken primarily by Malays (ethnic group), Malays in several islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and the Malay Peninsula on the mainland Asia. The lang ...

due to its towering height. Menara was discovered in August 2018. A research team scanned the tree in August 2018 with a terrestrial laser scanner and drone flights to produce a 3D model. On 6 January 2019, Unding Jami and his team established a measurement for the tree by climbing it and measuring its height using a tape measure. Menara is the second-tallest

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

in the world, slightly shorter than the record holder, the

Centurion In the Roman army during classical antiquity, a centurion (; , . ; , or ), was a commander, nominally of a century (), a military unit originally consisting of 100 legionaries. The size of the century changed over time; from the 1st century BC ...

tree, a ''

Eucalyptus regnans ''Eucalyptus regnans'', known variously as mountain ash (in Victoria), giant ash or swamp gum (in Tasmania), or stringy gum, is a species of very tall forest tree that is native to the Australia states of Tasmania and Victoria. It is a straigh ...

'' in

Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...

that is 100.5 m tall. Menara weighs nearly 81,500 kilograms not counting its roots; 95% of this mass is located in the

trunk Trunk may refer to: Biology * Trunk (anatomy), synonym for torso * Trunk (botany), a tree's central superstructure, and the stem of woody plants * Trunk of corpus callosum, in neuroanatomy * Elephant trunk, the proboscis of an elephant Comput ...

, while 5% comes from the 40 meter-wide

crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, parti ...

. The

stem Stem or STEM most commonly refers to: * Plant stem, a structural axis of a vascular plant * Stem group * Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Stem or STEM can also refer to: Language and writing * Word stem, part of a word respon ...

is extremely straight, with its center of mass at 28 m above the ground, which is just 0.6 m off from the central vertical axis. This indicates that the tree is highly symmetrical and well-balanced, even though it is sitting on a slope. Researcher Yalvinder Malhi stated in Monagabay that Sabah is a good place for trees to grow tall due to an absence of severe storms, hence the states nickname "the land beneath the wind". In 2020, Pos Malaysia Berhad release a stamp set featuring Menara. The set also includes a

miniature sheet A souvenir sheet or miniature sheet is a postage stamp or a small group of postage stamps still attached to the sheet on which they were printed. They may be either regular issues that just happen to be printed in small groups (typical of many ea ...

18 centimetres in length, making it the largest stamp ever released by Pos Malaysia.

References

{{Coord, 4.957885, 117.866341, display=title Individual trees in Malaysia

See also

References