tree size

[Leif Eklund]

Obviously the size of trees differ. But why does it? If you compare eg. a pine, a redwood and a cedar of the same age growing on the same spot having the same chance to allocate light, water minerals etc. they differ in stem size.  

As far as I understand stem diameter depends on the number of cells formed and/or the size of the formed cells.  There is a set of questions here: Is the cell cycle running faster in a fast growing tree species than in a slow growing species? What about the duration of cell expansion in the both types? Are there differences in the rate of phloem transport and unloading? What about the growing season? Leaf area? Does a fast growing species have a greater relative amount of "feeding" parts (leafs (or rather 
chloroplasts), phloem, root hairs) than supportin parts such as stems, roots and branches.


I want to get in touch with people having info on one or many (all?) aspects of the tree-size-business.