why is General Sherman (~4M pounds) considered the largest tree in the world, but Pando is considered the heaviest living organism in the world (~13M pounds)?

Question

why is General Sherman (~4M pounds) considered the largest tree in the world, but Pando is considered the heaviest living organism in the world (~13M pounds)?

In: Biology

Answer 1

It comes down to your definition of tree. Pando is one individual genetically but is also a whole forest of normal sized trees where each tree is an offshoot of the first tree’s roots. General Sherman is just an absurdly massive tree. 🙂