Big Trees Aren't Limited to the West Coast

Talk about the world's biggest trees usually focuses attention on the West Coast and the sky-scraping Redwood and Sequoia trees. East Coast trees never enter the conversation.
But that doesn't mean there aren't big trees in the East. It's just that when you talk about world-record-sized trees found in the eastern United States, that modifier usually is attached to the size of trees within a specific species, not among all trees growing out there.
Keeping that distinction in mind, know that the world's largest (but not tallest) eastern hemlock tree resides in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
True, the so-called "Laurel Branch Leviathan" stands only 156.3 feet tall, less than half the size of the tallest redwoods, which can rise to nearly 368 feet. But what apparently sets apart this eastern hemlock (which isn't as tall as the park's "Usis" eastern hemlock, which stands 173.1 feet tall) is its volume -- 1,583 cubic feet of wood.