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The very top of the magnificent Brotherhood Tree at the
Trees of Mystery |
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Visual comparison of two
inhabitants of the planet earth |
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Images of
Redwoods
The very top of the magnificent Brotherhood Tree at the
Trees of Mystery |
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A gnarled,limb
attachment point
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Spruce and
Redwood together
in this sun-dappled
grove
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Giant, silent
sentinels somewhere
in the Redwood
Forests of California
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Looking uphill
through a virgin
stand of Redwood
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An inviting corner
on the trail at
Trees of Mystery
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Click on pictures above
for a full view. |
Giants
To someone who has never seen one, a
Redwood must seem to be something from a tall tale. Averaging eight
feet to as much as twenty feet in diameter, and some as tall as three
hundred seventy five feet. That is a tree taller than the Statue of
Liberty, from base of the pedestal to the tip of the torch. A tree
larger around and through than a Greyhound bus. Absolutely the largest
living thing on earth. A typical Redwood forest contains more biomass
per square foot than ANY other area on earth, and that includes the
Amazonian rain forests. |
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Ancient
Redwoods
These
largest of living things are from an ancient line, and near redwoods
were present on earth at the same time as the dinosaur. Once found
almost world wide, their natural range is now restricted to the
foggy coastal belt of Northern California (the sequoia
sempervirens), a strip in the Sierra Nevada mountains of
sequoiadendron gigantia and a small group of meta sequoia
(Dawn Redwood) in a remote valley in China. These are the only
living examples of a tree line that at one time spanned the earth.
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Weather's
role in redwood growth and range
The Coastal Redwoods thrive on and
indeed require the heavy fogs that are normal daily occurences along
the coast. These 300 foot plus tall giants actually pull moisture
into their needles at the tops of the tree where the circulation
system of the tree can't pump to. The 50-60 degree average
temperature of the area are also important to the life cycle of
these trees. These two conditions are limits to the modern day range
of these awesome giants. They will grow about anywhere, as
evidenced by photos people have sent us over the years of trees
growing in such disparate places as Fresno California, Waycross
Georgia, Florida and even one hardy voyager in Phoenix Arizona. But
they will never attain their true size and stature without the
Coastal fogs and temperatures that nurture them and at the same time
keep other competing species, such as pines, stunted and sodden.
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Survival Strategies
Redwoods have some of the most
varied and intricate survival strategies going.The bark of a coastal
redwood is very thick, as much as a foot in places. And it exhibits
an unusual property when exposed to fire- it chars into a heat
shield. It actually turns into a pretty effective abalative,
similiar to the way a heat shield on a re-entry vehicle works.
The chemical composition of the
tree itself is apparently distasteful or even poisonous to normal tree
pests like termites and ants. That is why it was used as the first
layer of boards in a wall, because termites and carpenter ants won't
burrow into it. In the 30's to the early 60's redwood was used as a
separator between the plates of electrolytic (auto, truck and
airplane) batteries. The wood could withstand the battery acid and
still retain its shape.
And redwood is very resistant to
water associated rot. It is not uncommon to drill a well in a creek
bed in this area and end up drilling right through a redwood log that
may have been buried there for thousands of years. The wood comes out
of the pipe sound and in good shape.
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Proliferation Strategies
A live redwood that gets knocked
over will attempt to continue growing via its limbs. If undisturbed,
the limbs pointing up will turn into trees in their own right, and
this is indeed the source of many row groups of trees.
Cathedral or family groups of
trees are simply trees that have grown up from the living remains of
the stump of a fallen redwood, and since they grew out of the
perimeter, they are organized in a circle. If you looked at the
genetic information in a cell of each of these trees, you would find
that they were identical to each other and to the stump they sprang
from. They are clones!
The redwood burls are another
survival strategy. Their growth is held in check by the presence of
chemical signals in a living redwood. If the tree should die, or even
be stressed, say by low rainfall or fire, the chemical signal weakens
or vanishes and the burl will burst forth into verdant life. Burls
kept in a shallow pan of water will grow almost indefinitely. They can
also continue on to become a full grown redwood tree. At the very
least, if watered they will produce a lovely fringe of green pseudo
branchs and make a very interesting looking and unusual house plant.
Lastly, there is the conventional
sexual reproduction system of seeds. About 20% of today's present
trees sprang from seeds. The rest came from one of the various
cloning-based proliferation strategies. Genetically, it's the same
tree after each successive cloning process. 80% of the trees now
growing were produced in one these cloning processes. If you connect
these two facts, you will come to realize that some of those trees out
there could be the last in a 20,000 or 30,000 year (or more) line of
the SAME tree reproducing itself over and over again! Genetically,
they are the same tree that grew from a seed all those centuries ago!
Would it be proper to place the age of one of these trees as the true
age of its unchanged genetic material? I don't know, but these amazing
trees are truly ever-living.
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Unmatched
on the Floodplains*
Coastal Redwoods have the unique
ability to survive rising soil levels over their immense lifespans.
Rising ground levels are commonly brought about by flood deposits,
deposits that typically smother other trees root systems, killing
them. The redwood simply grows a new lateral root system! Seven
successive layers of roots were observed on one fallen redwood
meaning that the ground level had risen dramatically up the tree
seven times and each time the tree responded with a new root system.
The total rise on this particular tree was 11 feet over the trees
1200+ year life. It has been observed that some 1000+ year old
redwoods have experienced and survived rises in ground level of as
much as 30 feet! Couple this with redwoods ability to survive long
periods of immersion and their immense durability in the face of
flood borne debris and you will realize that the redwood can survive
and indeed thrive in flood planes that wipe out less hardy tree
species.
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There are three living
species of redwood. *
They are classified as three
separate genera: Coastal Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), Sierra
Redwood (Sequoiadendron gigantea) and the Dawn Redwood (metasequoia or
glyptostroboides) The metasequoia was first found as a fossil by a
Japanese botanist in China in 1941. Later, also during World War II,
living specimens were discovered in a single valley in central China.
The dawn redwood is deciduous while the sempervirens and the gigantea
are both evergreen.
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Ancient Redwoods *
The Dawn Redwood and the Coastal
Redwood spanned the Northern Hemisphere 65 million years ago while
their beginning was much earlier, in the Upper Cretaceous, about 110
million years ago. From their maximum coverage during the beginning
of the Tertiary period, 65 million years ago, the Dawn Redwoods have
steadily declined until the natural population ended up being
confined to a small valley in Central China, while the Coastal
Redwood exists in a narrow strip along the Northern California
coast. The Sierra Redwood covered the same areas as the Coastal and
the Dawn and in addition, Europe, and are now living in separate
small groves in narrow valleys in a small area of the Sierras.
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An
Honorable Name *
The "Sequoia" part of Seqouia
sempervirens and Sequoiadendron gigantea is in honor of the great
Cherokee patriarch of the Cherokee written language, Sequoia.
Several other names were used prior to settling on this most
appropriate one. Other early names were "Wellingtonea" in honor
of the Duke of Wellington and the very patriotic "Americus".
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Tectonics, geology *
Redwoods compensate for induced
leans caused by shifting slopes, collisions of other trees, flood
pressure and tectonic induced tilting, by the unusual ability to
"buttress" their undersides through accelerated growth on the
downhill side. It is possible to find groves of trees all leaning in
the same direction!
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Redwoods are very fast growing. *
A couple of notable examples:
one tree that
gained
seven feet in diameter in 108 years.
reports of second-growth yields of 5074 board feet per acre per
year.
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Redwood
Seedlings
We sell seedlings of all three
species of redwoods, The Dawn, Sierra and Coastal Redwood. Ordering
information can be found at
SEEDLINGS.
We also sell live Redwood burls and pictures of these can be found
at
BURLS.
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The above information
marked with an * was gleaned from two excellent articles on the
subject. Thanks and appreciation to the authors, Dr. Herbert G. Baker
and James A. Snyder for making them available on the internet. |
