Methodological approaches for determining the age of trees

In the course of various environmental studies it is often necessary to determine the age of woody plants. This issue can be of direct practical significance in forestry, forest inventory, as part of the care of trees in an urban environment, and when performing forensic botanical examinations. It is well known that using tree-ring information can give accurate age estimates, but researchers are not always correctly informed about the acceptable limits of using this approach. The article discusses methodological features and limitations in estimating the age of trees in different ways. We consider such approaches as estimating the age of trees by diameter, determining the age of conifers by whorls, determining the age of trees by appearance, as well as the age of trees in plantings by documents. The main attention is paid to methodological approaches based on the analysis of information of annual rings. Two methodological approaches developed by the authors for determining the age of trees - natural monuments are considered in detail.