#Sequoiadendron

[jillraggett]

Plant of the Day

Tuesday 28 January 2025

Usually described as a large and long-lived evergreen specimen for a large park or garden Sequoiadendron giganteum (giant redwood, big tree, giant sequoia, mammoth tree, Sierra redwood, washingtonia, wellingtonia) these trees were planted many decades ago in a garden and churchyard either side of a road in this village in Essex, UK. They were a great feature as a view from a cafe window.

Jill Raggett

[drhoz]

#2757 - Sequoiadendron giganteum -Giant Sequoia 

AKA giant redwood, Sierra redwood or Wellingtonia. First described in 1853 by English botanist John Lindley as Wellingtonia gigantea, but that generic had already been used for an unrelated plant in the family Sabiaceae. In 1854 French botanist Joseph Decaisne put it in the same genus as the coast redwood, naming it Sequoia gigantea, but that name had been applied, wrongly, to the coast redwood in 1847. Also in 1854 American botanist Andreas Peter Winslow named it Washingtonia californica - American botanists being slightly pissed that an English botanist had named the tree after a English military hero - but this name too was invalid, since there was already a palm genus Washingtonia. In 1907, German botanist Carl Ernst Otto Kuntze got in on the fun and put it in the otherwise extinct genus Steinhauera, but that's dubious enough to also be invalid.

These nomenclatural oversights (to put it politely) were corrected in 1939 by American gymnosperm expert John Theodore Buchholz, who put it in the new genus Sequoiadendron to stand proudly alone (the other two in the genus extinct since the Miocene and the Cretaceous respectively).

A giant cypress native to the Sierra Nevada, and the most massive trees on Earth. The tallest known is 94.8 m (311 ft) tall, and the widest trunk diameter reached 8.8 m (28.9 ft). Ages are known to have exceeded 3200 years.

Giant sequoias are adapted to forest fires, with unusually resistant bark, and cones that open immediately after a fire. They're having difficulty reproducing in their remaining habitat due to the seeds only being able to grow successfully in full sun and in mineral-rich soils, free from competing vegetation. That said, new stands planted in the San Jacinto Mountains and elsewhere, after forest fires cleared out the competition, are doing quite well.

An endangered species with fewer than 80,000 remaining in its native California. Infuriatingly, logged for timber despite being so brittle it was only good for fence posts and toothpicks.

Once much more widely distributed, and reasonably common in North American and Eurasian conifer forests until the last ice age.

In Aotearoa, ornamental Sequoias have already reached trunk diameters of over 3 meters in 120 years. They have a long way to go.

Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand

[haikuckuck]

Sequoiadendron seen in swabian woods

When we were of it aware

Got an american flair.

[conifersgarden]

[5-and-a-half-acres]

I grew sequoias from seed the spring one of my daughters was born 31 years ago. I kept this one because the leaves were bluish tinged.

It grows so fast.

[overdoso]

Você tem noção da dimensão de uma sequoia-gigante (Sequoiadendron giganteum)? É gigante mesmo.

[seanssaenz]

12/8/19 Sequoia National Park, California

-Sean S. 勝雲

[botanisiertrommel]

Baumkunde: Mammutbaum

[plant-taxonomy-showdown]

Phylum Semi-Finals

Big Spiky Things vs Little Soft Things

Pinophyta (conifers) fun fact: Giant sequoias, Sequoiadendron giganteum, can grow over 300 feet tall, 30 feet in diameter, and live for over 3,000 years. They are the world's largest trees.

Bryophyta (mosses) fun fact: Mosses in the Sphagnum genus can hold 16-26 times as much water as their dry weight.

[iwilltrytobereasonable]

The point is there aren’t many deciduous trees around here and our redwoods are usually fine so the Dawn redwoods specifically look like they’re dead.

The sequoiadendron freeze in winter. They can handle cold. Also they dry out in the end of summer, and, y’know, the fire thing. They CAN handle a lot of change, but consistent moisture? All year? Down by the Bay I think there’s just no interruptions to the fungal encroachment on young trees that don’t have thick enough bark to be safe yet.

Something I'm quietly fascinated by is the phenomenon of giant redwoods in the UK.

The Victorians loved them and there are now about 500,000 juvenile giant redwoods here (versus about 60,000 mature ones in California). Because the British ones aren't mature yet, the tallest is about 55m tall.

So there are a bunch of British forests that currently look like this:

That will one day look a bit more like this:

[whereifindsanity]

flickr.com: Kyle Wicomb

Grizzly Giant - Yosemite National Park in California. Sequoiadendron giganteum. 209 feet high!

[blood-mocha-latte]

these two Stood Next to Each Other and then Shook Hands and it was over for me. i loved demarco and macon and so naturally, i am sooooo normal about them.

~ snippet from an upcoming fic ~

Benny loves it when Macon talks about trees. It helps him fall asleep.

They’re outside and standing up, so it’s not like he can just conk out, but he watches as the wood machine pulls a stump out of the ground, sounds like grinding, cracking bones following it up.

“...they can get pretty massive, too.” Macon is saying, cigarette dangling out of his mouth, and Benny turns to glance at him, for a heartbeat. “But the Sequoiadendrons get huge. Bet you could drive right through one.”

Benny blinks, and realizes his mouth is wide open. “What?” He says, after a minute. Macon’s mouth tilts upwards, and his smoke moves with the gesture.

“Bet they’ll all be gone, before I’m even dead.” He says, and it’s almost hollow. “Around for millions of years and dead before I’ll see one in real life.”

Benny’s fingers are cold. He reaches out, takes Macon’s cigarette from in between his lips and brings it to his own mouth. He doesn’t think about the movement, just does it.

He can feel Macon’s eyes on the side of his face as he takes a drag. “What’s seventy-eight times one hundred and twenty-nine?” He asks, blowing out smoke. The first two numbers to pop into his head. 

Macon’s quiet, for a moment. Thinking. “Ten thousand sixty-two.” He says, finally. “Why?”

Benny smiles around the smoke, but turns and tucks it back into the corner of Macon’s mouth, nonetheless.

“Nothing.” He says. He loves it when Macon does math, too. “What’s sixty-two times eight hundred forty?”

Macon huffs, and smoke blows out of his nose. “Find someone else to do your times tables.” He says dryly.

[maik-ol]

Tree hugger: Sona Art

The tree head is a Sequoia Senpervirens aka a Coastal Redwood.

Fun facts about Coastal Redwoods under cut

This species of trees are the tallest trees in the world and can get up to 380 feet tall and can get up to 30 feet wide around.

Many were cut down for lumber and because of just how long it takes for them to live and grow (around 1,200 to 2,200 years) most are now preserved in national parks and forests and they currently have a endangered conservation status.

This sona is based off the Sequoia Senpervirens but in the same Sequoioideae subfamily in californa is the Sequoiadendron giganteum aka the Giant Sequoia and these are related to Metasequoia glyptostroboides which grows in China.

Fun fact I’ve lived around both Coastal Redwoods and Giant Sequoias but currently I go out to hike in Coastal Redwoods every weekend, but Sequoia national forest (home to most of the still living Giant Sequoias) is where I spent a lot of my childhood

[conifersgarden]

[mutant-distraction]

Fred Blackburn

This is a 40 foot diameter tree. Largest diameter Sequoiadendron Giganteum I know. Third largest tree in the world by volume.

Grant Grove, Kings Canyon NP

[cerebrodigital]

La triste historia de las Secuoyas en la Revolución Industrial...

Las majestuosas secuoyas gigantes, como el impresionante ejemplar de 2600 años talado en los años 1890, simbolizan la grandeza natural y la historia viva de nuestro planeta. Estos gigantes de la naturaleza, conocidos científicamente como Sequoiadendron giganteum, no solo son algunos de los árboles más altos y longevos, sino que también son emblemáticos de la Sierra Nevada en California, EE. UU.

A finales del siglo XIX, la revolución industrial y la expansión urbana en Estados Unidos generaron una demanda masiva de madera, situando a estas secuoyas en el centro de la industria maderera. Su tamaño colosal y madera resistente las convirtieron en un recurso altamente deseado, llevando a la tala de muchos ejemplares centenarios.

La historia de la secuoya de 2600 años es un triste recordatorio de cómo las actividades humanas pueden afectar profundamente a la naturaleza. En la actualidad, se realizan esfuerzos significativos para proteger a estas magníficas secuoyas, consideradas tesoros nacionales y pilares ecológicos, asegurando su preservación para las futuras generaciones.