Guide
The Örümcek forests in Kürtün district of Gümüşhane are known for a handful of exceptionally large trees, and the provincial directorate's account of them does not hold together.
It first says the trees are among the tallest and thickest of the oriental spruces, at 57.6 metres and 192 centimetres in diameter. In the next sentence it says they belong to the Black Sea fir. It then gives a third figure, 61.5 metres, for a Black Sea fir it says is reputed to be the tallest fir in Europe — reported as something said rather than established. Two heights, two species names, one page.
What is consistent is where they are. Four trees stand at the Çifte Köprü locality, two of them in compartment 169 and two in compartment 159, in a stand the directorate calls monumental.
Our inventory also holds a separate record for the Örümcek forest nature conservation area in this province; this is not that record.
