Big Trees

The Sequoia!! The Biggest Living Thing in the World!!



Wellll, define biggest... But they are pretty big. Also, they live a long time (Sequoiadendron Sempervirens is the ful name). One of the consequences of this is that they all have to live through a forest fire, or two or ten. Having very thick and pretty fire-resistant bark, this doesn't bother them too much. The rule is, as long as there is somewhere on the tree a strip of bark that leads from the ground to above the burned area, the tree is OK; it grows more bark. This tree here is not as big as they get, but pretty big and pretty battle-scarred; the inside is all burned).
A piece of the bark-it's about 2 to 2-1/2 inches thick. Some cones - not all that big.

In fact, the biggest cones belong to the Sugarcone Pine. Sequoia on the right; in the middle, a plant called the Snowplant, which grows right in the middle of the snow.The foliage; Sequoia is a species of Cedar.
This is Incense Cedar, which smells very nice and looks a lot like the Sequoia, only not so big.


As to being the biggest living thing, well, yes, Sequoias are the heaviest. It turns out that the California Redwood Tree, a related species that lives on the West Coast, is the tallest. The Bristlecone Pine is the oldest. And the Sugarcone has the biggest cones.

The Sequoia starts out going for tall, since that's how to get to the sunshine. After they get old & tall enough, then they start to get wider. Like people...

This really is sort of a funny shape for a tree. Looks a bit like a bad hair day?

Then from this grove, the Mariposa Grove, we went down through some of the San Joaquin Valley: Orange Groves...
A feed lot: Hundreds of cows, all eating away. This lot said Land O' Lakes, so perhaps they were merely giving milk, not their lives.
The Yuccas were blooming: They are called century plqants. Actually, they live about 30-50 years, then all of a suddeen the stalk at the top starts growing, maybe a foor a week. One fine daqy, they bloom, swome species for only one night, otheres for a week or two. Then, they grow seed pods, and die. Thius time, they hasd all decided to bloom at once, and they were gorgeous.

A sign. Also a propane tank, apparently.

California Buckeye Then on to the Trail of a Hundred Giants.

One of the Sequoia's secrets of survival: It's a weakling. The wood is quite brittle and not strong; this trunk broke into a half-dozen pieces when it fell. So the loggers, after a few such experiences, decided they weren't worth cutting down.
They are big.

The mountains:

There are lots of signs to 'Watch for fallen Rock' Best not to think too much about that.
Lastly, the General Grant Grove. (These three groves, plus the Grove of the Ancients, comprise almost all of the sequoias there are. Some were chopped down; but they have a rather specialized habitat: quite high up, and just the right kind of soil. Apparently there were more during the last ice age.

Barb with the Sherman. It wasn't the biggest when named; Every year it puts on weight equal to an entire tree of any other species. The Sentinel is the second biggest, the General Grant the third.

My favorite statistic about the Genral Grant: If you converted the weight of the tree to gasoline, you could drive your family car around the earth 230 times.

You're not supposed to feed the animals, but...

They love to name the trees. This is the Bachelor, and the Three Graces The Faithful Couple: Started out as two trees right next to each other, then grew together (sweet)...
This couple is just playing footsie...

The Clothespin Tree. You can walk thru it. There was one famous one you could drive thru, but it fell down many years ago; There's another drive-thru, but it's on private land somewhere.
Another example of trees close together. It seems that fire is important to Sequoias. The young trees have a tough time, especially is there is a lot of undergrowth. So when an 'understory' fire happens, not too hot and just burning the stuff near the ground, this heats the cones and causes them to open up and the seeds to fall to the ground. It can happen that several seeds from the same cone sprout and find ideal conditions to grow up tall enough to survive. These trees all probably came from the same cone, or from cones that fell at the same time.
The Fallen Tunnel. It fell centuries ago, but being high altitude, they decay very slowly. You can walk in an aisle down the inside of the trunk.

The Fallen Tunnel again. Note the people over to the right and near the bottom; this is big.
A piece of the wood: An avid photographer. This butterfly was very patient, staying around until she got the picture just right. The kid doesn't look quite as excited. Somewhere in there, a reminder that the Indians lived here before we came and threw them out. The mortar is a five-pound piece of stone that the women spend all day grinding against another piece of stone. On their knees. All day. Until they'd ground about one ton of corn, enough to feed the family for another year. Try this at home. Being an Indian isn't all riding horses around and whooping.
A Quote from Chief Seattle, he for whom the city is named.