Which mainland is home to a unique sequoia tree. The maximum height of an evergreen sequoia. Sequoia National Park in California

Sequoia(lat. sequoia) - a genus of trees of the Cypress family, growing on the Pacific coast of North America. We all heard about redwoods more than once, both in nature studies classes at school and on TV. But what these huge trees actually look like and where they grow, few people imagine. No less surprising is the fact that there are also different types of sequoias. We first saw these amazing giants during our self-guided tour. It turns out that the sequoia tree is also a symbol of the state of California. And in this article we will introduce you to these largest trees in the world (not to be confused with baobabs!).

Sequoia species

Sequoias are evergreen trees belonging to the cypress family. We've already seen it when we drove the 17 Mile Road. There are three types of sequoia trees known worldwide, two of which grow in the United States:

• coastal sequoia (Sequoia sempervirens) - grows on the coast of California in the USA;
• giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) - common in the Sierra Nevada region;
• metasequoia (Metasequoia) grows in China.

And only the giant sequoiadendron is widely known in the world under the name sequoia. Coastal is called redwood, or redwood (Redwood). It is these two species that are the largest trees in the world. The coastal sequoia is the tallest tree, and the giant sequoia is the most voluminous. The Chinese metasequoia is not surprising at all with its size.

High sequoia in the photo

Characteristics of sequoia tree species:

Sequoia Redwood ( Sequoia sempervirens)

Wood redwood found only on the Pacific Coast in Northern California and Oregon. Nowhere else in the world is this species (Evergreen Sequoia, Red Sequoia) does not grow. Redwood is considered to be tallest tree in the world on planet Earth and reaches a height of 115 meters. About 50 currently growing redwoods have a height of more than 100 meters. The thickness of the trunk reaches 6.5 meters. There are specimens of redwood sequoia aged from 1500 to 2000 years.

Durable yet soft redwood redwood bark

Sequoiadendron giant ( Sequoiadendron giganteum)

Another type of sequoia is sequoiadendron giant(also known as the Giant Sequoia, Wellingtnia or Mammoth Tree), growing in the western part of the Sierra Nevada in California, at an altitude of 1500-2000 meters. This type of tree got its name because of its gigantic size. And although the height of their tallest trees does not exceed 95 meters, the thickness of the trunk can reach 12 meters. The oldest representative of the growing today has an age of about 3200 years. Currently, only about 30 groves of giant sequoias have survived.

Interesting fact. According to some reports, the breeding season of the giant sequoia begins when it reaches the age of about 400 years. A mandatory concomitant factor in order for the sequoia to give offspring is high temperature. Here's what we know about wildfires and their benefits to redwoods:

• Forest fires do not cause significant damage to mature trees;
• Sequoia bark, which, like a sponge, absorbs moisture from the air, is quite resistant to fire;
• However, the heat generated by burning the forest floor is best for opening the buds and bringing redwood seeds to the ground and germinating in soil rich in minerals after burning;
• In addition, the forest, thinned by fire, allows sunlight to break through the dense crown of trees and creates conditions for the growth of young redwoods.

Watch a video about giant sequoias and their dependence on forest fires:

Metasequoia ( Metasequoia)

But there is another type of sequoia in the world - Metasequoia glyptostrobe, which grows in the provinces of Wubei and Sichuan in China, but these trees are quite normal in size. This species of sequoia is on the verge of extinction and is listed in the Red Book. They are very rare, and only on the slopes of mountains in remote areas of the Chinese provinces. That is, the ordinary tourist is not available. But the American sequoias - redwood and giant can be seen both from the car window, and take a walk along the forest paths in a grove among majestic trees.

When we traveled around the USA by car during our course, we spent a lot of time getting to know the largest trees in the world. So, let's figure out where to go if you have a desire to get acquainted with coastal and giant sequoias in the USA.

Curious fact

The thickness of the trunk of a giant sequoia reaches 12 meters in diameter. This is enough to fit a whole house inside it or to draw a highway!

Coastal redwoods

Natural conditions in the national parks of Northern California, where does sequoia grow are ideal for these giant trees. Redwood can be seen in the following US parks and conservation areas:

• (Redwood national and state parks) includes several state parks, which can be accessed for a fee. If you are on the highway and just going north, then you do not need to pay for it. And if you leave the highway to take a walk, then an annual subscription to national parks (Annual pass) is valid throughout the territory, except for state parks - Del Norte Coastal Redwood State Park and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park - where you have to pay separately.
• Muir National Monument (Muir wood National Monument) near San Francisco. There is an annual pass to the national parks.
• If you are traveling in California by car from San Francisco to the north, you can also drop by Humboldt State Park (Humboldt Redwoods state park) and on Avenue of the Giants (Avenue of the giants), the fee is separate. There you can drive your car through a tree for $5 ( Shrine Drive-thru tree).

Sequoias are the tallest trees in the world

redwood highway

Highway 101 is even called "Redwood Highway" (redwood road) in honor of its main attraction. You can just drive along the highway and admire the sequoias growing on its sides. And here redwood grows without the protection of national parks. And knowledgeable people will go not only along the 101 road, but also along, which also has a proud name redwood highway. And as it seemed to me personally, here the trees are more beautiful, and the track is prettier. And it’s even more pleasant that you are driving, and the sequoias themselves are growing around, which even becomes inconvenient that people cut a road in the rock and disturbed the tranquility of nature. So, Redwood Highway is:

• route 101 in Northern California from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to Crescent City;
• running parallel to it Avenue of the Giants in the Humboldt State Park area;
• route 199 in Oregon.

Map of Humboldt Park (Avenue of the Giants)

giant sequoias

The giant sequoia grows in the US state of California in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and to admire these trees you can visit three national parks:

• (giant forest) in Sequoia National Park ( sequoia national park). The entire park consists of giant sequoia trees, and tourists here are especially fond of the famous tree, to which a whole line is lined up. It is the largest and heaviest tree in the world. Its height is 84 meters, the circumference of the trunk at the ground exceeds 31 meters, the volume is about 1500 m 3, and the mass is estimated at 1900 tons!
• General Grant Grove (Grant Grove) in Kings Canyon National Park ( kings canyon national park) - this small area is located next to Sequoia Park and is easily accessible, unlike the rest of Kings Canyon.
• Mariposa Grove (Mariposa Grove) in Yosemite National Park ( Yosemite national park). Here the giant sequoias are presented in all their splendor!

Where does the sequoia grow?

Sequoia trees grow on. And when we traveled by car through the national parks of America, we visited several parks in the state of California, where we saw coastal and giant sequoias in all their glory:

• Redwood National Park about which they wrote. This is the place where coastal redwoods grow in their most natural environment;
• We rode with great pleasure in both California and Oregon;
• As for the giant sequoia, we visited all three places where they grow: in the park, in Kings Canyon and in;
• But we didn't get into humbolt park, because in the evening they were in a hurry to come to Yurika and swept along the highway with a breeze and did not stop at the Avenue of the Giants. Nevertheless, the evening drive turned out to be very inspiring, and we took many photos from the car window. You can see them in a post about the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Cape Point Reyes and.

Redwoods with a tunnel in the trunk for cars and pedestrians

In January 2017, it became known that the most famous sequoia with a tunnel in the trunk— Pioneer Cabin Tree. This giant sequoia in the US became famous for having a tunnel in the trunk that a car could drive through. A tree that was growing in Calaveras Big Trees State Park was downed by a violent storm, making worldwide news and sparking an unprecedented interest in sequoias.

The tunnel at the base of this giant sequoia was originally built in the late 1980s at the request of the owner of the Murphys Hotel. It was a tourist attraction, because it was incredibly interesting for people of that time to pass and even drive through the trunk, and then tell all their friends about it. So more and more people learned about this interesting place and they increasingly came to the park and stayed at the hotel.

It was this tree that was chosen for cutting the tunnel due to the fact that it already had a huge scar after a forest fire. In fairness, it must be said that the idea of ​​​​the tunnel was not new and, according to the idea of ​​​​the hotel owner, this sequoia tree was supposed to compete with the already well-known Wavon tree in Yosemite's Wawona Tree in the United States, in which the tunnel was made much earlier, in 1881, in order to attract as many visitors to the park as possible. And although the Wawona sequoia in the Mariposa Grove stood much less (only until February 1969), some older Americans still remember the car tunnel in it.

Interesting fact: The sequoia with the tunnel felled on January 8, 2017 was not the only one in California. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, it was very fashionable in the western United States to make such tunnels in giant trees in order to attract everyone's attention and develop automobile tourism. After all, through it it was possible not only to walk or ride a bicycle, but also to drive inside the sequoia by car. However, this trend caused irreparable damage to nature and was quickly stopped.

More than a century has passed since then, and almost all the trees with car tunnels have collapsed. The Pioneer Cabin Tree giant sequoia was the last such tree of its kind, and now it too has fallen. However, you can still see a couple of giant sequoias with a tunnel for pedestrians on the West Coast of the United States and three coastal sequoias with car tunnels.

Tunnels in giant sequoias:

• California Tunnel Tree in Mariposa Grove (Yosemite National Park). The tunnel was made in 1895 in such a way that a horse-drawn carriage could pass through this giant sequoia. Today, the tunnel can only be walked or cycled through.
• Dead Tunnel Tree in Tulumne Grove, also in Yosemite National Park. It was the very first growing giant sequoia to be tunneled through (earlier tunnels were already made in fallen tree trunks).

Tunnels for cars in coastal redwoods:

• Chandelier Tree(The Chandelier Tree) is the most famous tunnel tree in the United States and is located in Drive-Thru Tree Park in Leggett, California, USA. Its height is 96 meters. The tunnel was made in the late 30s of the XX century, its width is 1.8 m and the height is 2.06 m. Anyone can drive through the sequoia in a car and take a photo of their car inside the tree for 5 US dollars. See the website for all details and directions.
• Two other coastal redwoods with tunnels grow along US 101 in northern California in Klamath(Klamath) and Myers Flat(Myers Flat).

Sequoia on the USA map

Legend:

• blue color - coastal sequoia (redwood) grows here
• orange color - places where you can see giant sequoias
• purple - attractions in redwood parks - beautiful coastlines, lagoons, places for watching deer or whales

Come and admire the biggest trees in the world!

Sequoia sempervirens (D.Don) Endl. - Sequoia evergreen, or red sequoia.

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✪ 10 tallest trees on the planet. Sequoia Evergreen.

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Name

The generic name was proposed by the Austrian botanist Stefan Endlicher in 1847 for the tree formerly known as Taxodium sempervivens. D.Don, Endlicher did not indicate its origin. In 1854, Asa Gray, who recognized the need to distinguish the genus, wrote about the new name as "meaningless and dissonant." In 1858, George Gordon published the etymology of the generic names of a number of genera of conifers proposed by Endlicher, but he did not find an explanation for the name "Sequoia".

In 1868 California geologist Josiah Dwight Whitney in a guide to Yosemite The Yosemite Book indicated that the plant was named after Sequoia  (George Hess) ( Sequoyah, OK. 1770 - c. 1843) - chief of the Cherokee Indian tribe, inventor of the Cherokee syllabary (1826) and founder of the Cherokee newspaper. According to Whitney, Endlicher learned about the Indian chief from an article in country gentleman that caught his attention. From later editions The Yosemite Book phrase about the article country gentleman was removed due to its obvious fallacy. Endlicher published the title in 1847, died March 28, 1849, and the first number country gentleman only came out on November 4, 1852. AT country gentleman indeed, an article mentioning the Sequoia appeared only on January 24, 1856. This article described the tree Sequoia gigantea, and also for the first time it was assumed that it was named after an Indian leader.

In 1860 in a magazine The Gardener's Monthly two articles appeared, in the first of which a certain L. supported the justification for naming a plant genus after a prominent Indian chief, and in the second editor of the journal Thomas Meehan reported that neither he nor L. no, but it seems to them quite probable.

George Gordon suggested in 1862 that sequoia derived from lat. sequī - "follow something", in his opinion this genus "follows" the genus Taxodium, from which Endlicher isolated it. However, he also isolated the genus Glyptostrobus from the genus Taxodium, but called it completely differently.

It should be noted that in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bnatural distribution, the sequoia is better known as the “mahogany” (eng. Redwood, or Coastal Redwood, or California Redwood), Redwood and Muir forest reserves are located in this area; at the same time, plants of the related species sequoiadendron are known as "giant sequoias". It is the latter that grow in the Sequoia National Park.

Botanical description

Distribution and ecology

It grows in the United States along the Pacific coast in a strip about 750 km long and 8 to 75 km wide from California to southwestern Oregon, and is also grown in the Canadian province of British Columbia, in the southeastern United States from east Texas to Maryland, in Hawaii , in New Zealand, Great Britain, Italy, Portugal, South Africa and Mexico. Average heights - 30-750 m above sea level, sometimes trees grow near the shore, sometimes climb to a height of up to 920 m. Sequoia loves the humidity that the sea air brings with it. The tallest and oldest trees grow in gorges and deep ravines, where currents of moist air can reach all year round and where fogs regularly occur. Trees growing above the fog layer (above 700 m) are lower and smaller due to drier, windier and cooler growing conditions.

Facts

Trees taller than 60 m are very common, many taller than 90 m.

The largest tree in the world August 10th, 2014

Here is the definition of this tree can be found in Wikipedia:

General Sherman- a copy of the giant sequoiadendron ( Sequoiadendron giganteum) growing in the "Giant Forest" of the Sequoia National Park in California, USA. In terms of volume, it is the largest tree on Earth. The height of the General Sherman tree is 83.8 m, the volume of the trunk is estimated at 1487 m³, the weight is 1900 tons, and the age is 2300-2700 years.

The General Sherman tree is the largest and heaviest living organism on our planet. However, it is neither the tallest sequoia (this record belongs to the Hyperion tree, which belongs to the evergreen sequoia species), nor the tallest representative of sequoiadendrons (95 m high specimens are known, but they have a smaller volume). It is also known that the Crannell Creek Giant tree, cut down in the mid-1940s, Crannell Creek Giant) species evergreen sequoia, growing near the city of Trinidad, had about 15-25% more volume than General Sherman

Let's take a closer look at it...

Photo 2.

In the nineteenth century, the area where the famous tree grows, the explorer John Muir, called the "Giant Forest" when he discovered giant sequoias. The name of this part of the park, "Giant Forest", remains to this day. Many tourists describe the General Sherman tree, striking in its size, as a red-orange "stone", the top of which cannot be seen.

Tourists come to the park specifically to see the General Sherman tree, named after Civil War hero General William Sherman, and take pictures. Next to the sequoia, they seem so fragile and small.

Photo 3.

For a long time it was believed that General Sherman's tree was over three thousand years old, but recent studies have determined its exact age - exactly two thousand years. So it's not the oldest tree in the world.

The oldest tree in the world, a special species of California pine, was 4,484 years old when it was cut down in 1965. Sequoias were also cut down, the age of which reached about 3000 years. It is believed that 5,000 trees still exist on Earth.

In the winter of 2006, the tree of General Sherman lost part of its crown, the largest branch of the tree fell off, the diameter of which was about two meters, and the length was about 30 meters.

Photo 4.

Scientists are worried, is the tree really dying? However, they came to the conclusion that this incident does not indicate any problems in the condition of the tree, but can only be a natural defense mechanism against adverse weather conditions.

When the branches fell to the ground, the fence around the tree and the road leading to it were destroyed. Even after this, General Sherman's tree did not lose its status as the largest tree on the planet.

A special path leads to the tree of General Sherman, and even people with disabilities can see this miracle. At the end of the path, brick tiles are laid out, which show where the roots of the tree reach.

Photo 5.

Each year, the giant's trunk grows nearly 1.5 cm in diameter. The General Sherman tree is still growing and, according to the California State Park website, annually adds enough wood to make a five or six-room house.

One of the secrets to giant sequoias' longevity is their thick, tough, fire-resistant bark. But sometimes, during the frequent fires in southern California, the tree burns through.

Photo 7.

No one can say how long a sequoia can live (and scientifically - a giant sequoia), but researchers meet trees here, whose age is estimated at 3 thousand years! (About this period in Eurasia, mankind learned to process copper and bronze).

Photo 8.

Have you ever thought about how much oxygen such a tree can give out? About 120 kg per year - this will be enough for a family of three to four people!

Photo 9.

Several numbers. The circumference of the trunk near the ground itself is 31.3 m. The crown span is 39.6 meters. The total weight of the tree is 1910 tons, the weight of the trunk is 1121 tons.

General Sherman is found in literature: in Upton Sinclair's fairy tale "Gnomobile - gnome news about gnomes", as well as in Ilf and Petrov's book "One-story America".

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Sequoia (lat. Sequoia) is one of the largest and most ancient trees on Earth. These woody plants of the Cypress family can grow up to 76 meters (25-story building), and individual specimens of the sequoia reach a height of more than 110 m. The maximum age is more than three and a half thousand years. Their diameter at the level of the human chest is 9 meters.

Giant sequoias are one of the subspecies of cypress. The sight of these huge trees, whose trunks and crowns go up tens of meters, involuntarily arouses admiration ...

The oldest sequoias known today are over 3,500 years old.

The average height of the trees is about 60 meters, but there are also entire groves over 90 meters high. To date, about fifty sequoias are known, whose height exceeds the 105-meter mark.

The tallest known tree on our planet is the Hyperion sequoia, which grows in Redwood National Park near San Francisco. The height of this giant is 115.5 meters

There is an interesting subspecies of sequoias - sequoiadendrons, which are distinguished by a smaller height, but a large trunk diameter. The most voluminous sequoia in the world belongs precisely to this subspecies, it is the 83.8-meter "General Sherman", the base diameter of which is 11.1 meters, and the trunk coverage is 31.3 meters. The volume of the tree is 1487 cubic meters

The wood of these trees is inedible for forest pests, and the very thick bark (up to 30 cm in some places) is a thermal shield and protects the tree from fire during fires. This explains such a long life of sequoia.

Sequoia is also very resistant to moisture related rot. It is not uncommon when, when drilling wells in the bosom of streams, a sequoia trunk undamaged by moisture and time was found, which had lain there for more than one thousand years.

Sequoia grows extremely fast, here are a couple of telling examples: one tree reached a diameter of 2.1 meters in 108 years, and the yield of secondary forest per hectare per year was almost 30 cubic meters of wood.

There is a tunnel through a fallen redwood tree in California's Sequoia National Park of the same name.

It is usually difficult to imagine the real scale from a photograph, so a few pictures in which people are present - to make it easier to compare sizes

Interesting Sequoia Facts:

Trees taller than 60 m are very common, many taller than 90 m.

The tallest sequoia, named Hyperion, was discovered in the summer of 2006 by Chris Atkins and Michael Taylor in Redwood National Park north of San Francisco. The tree is 115.5 meters (379.1 ft) high. The researchers said that the woodpecker's damage to the tree at the top prevented the sequoia from reaching a height of 115.8 meters (380 feet).

The previous record holder of the currently growing trees was the Stratospheric Giant, growing in Humboldt Redwoods Park, California. The tree was 112.34 m in August 2000, previously 112.56 m in 2002, and as of 2010 is 113.11 m (371.1 ft).

Prior to Hyperion, the tallest tree of all time was the Dyerville Giant, also in Humboldt Redwoods Park. The height was measured after its fall in March 1991 and was 113.4 meters. The age is estimated to be about 1600 years.

15 currently growing trees have a height of more than 110 m, and 47 trees have a height of more than 105 m.

Some argue that the height of the sequoia, cut down in 1912, was 115.8 m.

The second place in height after sequoia is occupied by Douglas spruce (Menzies pseudo-tsuga). The tallest living pseudo-hemzies of Menzies, "Doerner Fir" (formerly known as "Brummit fir"), is 99.4 m tall,

In 2004, the journal Nature wrote that the maximum theoretical height of a sequoia (or any other tree) is limited to 122-130 meters due to gravity and friction between water and the pores of the wood through which it oozes.

The most voluminous tree among redwoods is "Del Norte Titan" (English) Russian. The volume of this sequoia is estimated at 1044.7 m³, height - 93.57 m, and diameter - 7.22 m. on the Earth of trees, only 15 giant sequoias (sequoiadendrons) are more massive than it. Sequoiadendrons (English: sequoia) are somewhat shorter, but they have a thicker trunk than redwoods (English: red woods). So, the volume of the largest copy of the dendron sequoia "General Sherman" is 1487 m³.

The history of the name of the sequoia tree is quite interesting. This large tree was first called the California pine or mammoth tree, as the ends of the branches bent up, resembled the fangs of mammoths. In 1859, the Swedish botanist Linnaeus decided to name this huge tree in honor of the English commander Wellington. The new name "Wellingtonia Huge" did not exist for long. The Americans decided that such a significant plant should bear the name of their national hero - George Washington. After that, the tree was called "huge Washington".

Disputes over how best to name this tree did not subside. After some time, it nevertheless got its name - Sequoia, in honor of the leader of one of the Indian tribes - Sequoia, it was he who led the liberation struggle against foreign invaders for many years. Some people still call this tree "mammoth".

Scientific classification:

Department: Conifers

Class: Conifers

Order: Pine

Family: Cypress

Subfamily: Sequoioideae

Genus: Sequoia (lat. Sequoia)

The nature of our planet is amazing and amazingly diverse. This, for example, is clearly evidenced by the real giants of the world of flora - sequoias. Majestic trees have been growing for more than one millennium, reaching a height of one hundred meters, and some representatives even exceed this threshold. Simply amazing! Of course, you will not find such amazing plants at every step. So, we will talk about where giant sequoias grow.

Where does the sequoia grow in natural conditions?

Unfortunately, the lands of North America are the only place where the sequoia tree grows. The evergreen giant grows on the Pacific coast on a narrow strip of land up to 75 km wide and up to 750 km long.

They like the warm and humid climates of Northern and Central California and Southern Oregon. In addition, sequoia can be found in ravines and gorges where there are fogs. The most beautiful representatives of the sequoia are found on the lands of the Redwood National Park and in the Sequoia National Park.

Where are sequoias grown?

In addition to natural growth, the natural giant is grown in the UK, Hawaii, Italy, New Zealand, and South Africa. As you can see, these are mainly countries that have access to the sea.

If we talk about whether sequoia grows in Russia, then fortunately, we also have the opportunity to see this tree, beautiful in its gigantic growth. Since the presence of a warm climate and sea moisture is possible only on the Black Sea coast, the place where sequoia grows in Russia is the Krasnodar Territory. In the Sochi Arboretum there is a small area planted with not yet giant evergreen trees. But who knows, maybe in one or two thousand years, the sharp peaks of hundred-meter sequoias will proudly rise above the surroundings.