Sequoia evergreen. Coniferous trees
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 thousands of years, reaching a height of one hundred meters, and some representatives even exceed this threshold. Simply amazing! Of course, you won’t find such amazing plants at every step. So, we will talk about where giant sequoias grow.
Where does sequoia grow naturally?
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 only up to 75 km wide and up to 750 km long.
They thrive in the warm, humid climates of Northern and Central California and Southern Oregon. In addition, sequoia can be found in ravines and gorges where there is fog. The most beautiful representatives of the redwoods are found on the lands of Redwood National Park and Sequoia National Park.
Where are sequoia grown?
In addition to its 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 region. 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 surrounding area.
SEQUOIA– evergreen coniferous pine (monoecious gymnosperm) tree, Cypress family, subfamily – Sequoiaceae, genus – Sequoia.
The name of the genus was given in honor Redwoods (George Hess) (Sequoyah, OK. 1770 - approx. 1843)- Indian tribal leader Cherokee, inventor of the Cherokee syllabary (1826), founder of the Cherokee language newspaper.
Currently genus Sequoia presented in two types:
1.Sequoia evergreen (lat. Sequoia sempervirens), or Red Sequoia, Also - Mahogany.
2. Sequoia giant , or Giant Sequoiadendron(lat. Sequoiadendron giganteum), or mammoth tree, Also - Wellingtonia.
Both of these species are relict, preserved WITHOUT CHANGES since ancient times, and were once distributed throughout the globe.
Fossil samples indicate that these giant trees existed already in Jurassic period, between 208 and 144 million years ago, and then occupied vast territories. They now grow in small regions along the western edge of the North American continent.
Previously there were other related species of redwoods, but they all completely disappeared from the physical plane of the Earth, and at present they are known only from fossilized remains.
A brief description of the two extant species of the genus Sequoia.
grows in the states California And Washington in the USA and in the south of the Canadian province British Columbia along the Pacific coast on a strip about 750 km long and 8 to 75 km wide. Average altitudes - 30-750 m above sea level, sometimes the trees grow close to the shore, sometimes they climb to a height of up to 920 m. Sequoia loves the humidity that the sea air brings with it. It has an increased ability to absorb moisture from the air. The tallest and oldest trees grow in gorges and deep ravines, where streams of moist air can reach all year round and where fogs regularly occur. Trees growing above the fog layer (above 700 m) grow shorter and smaller in size due to drier, windier and cooler growing conditions.
A height of 90 or more meters for Sequoia evergreen is common; there are also trees 110-113 m high. A record height of 117 m was noted (scientists believe that the absolute limit of growth is a height of 125-130 m, since due to gravity and friction, the sap they still won’t be able to rise higher from the roots). The thickness of the trunks at the base often reaches 6-7 m or more.
They are by far the tallest trees on Earth and the longest living, along with the Giant Sequoia. Maturity Redwood evergreen occurs in 400-500 years, and specimens aged more than 1500 years(the oldest known - OK. 2200 years).
The size of these forests has now been greatly reduced as a result of active exploitation. Apparently, trees originally covered an area of 6,131 square meters. km, but currently there are much fewer of them, and their logging is prohibited in only two protected areas.
The trunk of the Sequoia evergreen is enclosed in a thick, fibrous, low-flammable bark. Young trees branch along their entire length, but with age the lower branches fall off and a closed canopy forms at the top. It practically does not allow light to reach the ground; as a result, the undergrowth is quite poorly developed, since only ferns and other shade-loving plants can grow here along with rare young sequoias. A mature tree produces many seeds, but only a small portion of them germinate successfully, and those that do germinate must struggle with low light. Under natural conditions, such slow reproduction would be quite sufficient, since trees can survive 3000 years, But With more active exploitation of the forest, young trees do not appear quickly enough to compensate for the felling.
Evergreen sequoia is resistant to fires, fungi and other diseases, it is not eaten by bugs and other insects, the wood is very beautiful and resistant to rotting, is in demand and is expensive, so these trees in many unprotected areas are cut down by commercial companies.
As a result artificial plantings of the 19th and 20th centuries., there are small groves of Sequoia evergreen (Mahogany) and its single specimens in Europe and Asia, usually in special botanical gardens and arboretums (Belgium, Crimea, Transcaucasia).
Currently Sequoia evergreen (Mahogany) is protected from deforestation and sabotage in only two small areas in the USA: in the National Park Redwood(Red Forest) and in the National Forest Muir Forest.
National reserve (forest park) Muir Woods is located 19 km north of San Francisco and is part of the park (rest areas)"Golden Gate".
Muir Woods occupies 226 hectares, on 97 hectares of them grows Coast Redwood, literally - coast redwood ( Sequoia sempervirens- lat.), referred to in Russian simply as “ Sequoia«.
Tallest tree in Muir Woods 258 feet ( 79 m). Average age of trees in Muir Woods from 500 to 800 years, the oldest - 1200 years.
One hundred and fifty million years ago, these trees grew throughout the continent. When the loggers arrived in the 19th century, they occupied an area of 8,000 sq. km. By the early 20th century, most of these forests had been cleared.
To save the remains of the trees, a local businessman William Kent and his wife Elizabeth bought 247 hectares of land, which had to be flooded during the construction of the dam. The hydraulic engineering company sued him, and then Kent found a way out - he donated 119 hectares of land to the federal government.
January 9, 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt declared these lands a national monument. According to Kent's agreement, the monument was named in honor of the naturalist John Muir, who did much to create the national park system. In 1937, construction of the Golden Gate Bridge was completed, and park attendance tripled, reaching more than 180 thousand people. Now Muir Woods is one of the main tourist attractions in San Francisco, Bay Area (776 thousand visitors in 2005).
Redwood National Park - national park in California, USA.
Created October 2, 1968 when the president Lyndon Johnson signed a decree creating the Redwood National Park with a total area of 23,500 ha. It included three existing state-level redwood parks - Jededee Smith, Del Norte and Prairie Creek. In 1978, Congress decided to expand the national park area by 19,400 hectares.
The park is covered in ancient redwood forests.
Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron, Mammoth tree) It is protected in only one place - Sequoia National Park.
Sequoia National Park(English) Sequoia National Park) - national park United States, located in the southern Sierra Nevada, east of the city of Visalia in California. The park was founded in 1890 year, the third after Yellowstone and Mackinac National Parks, later abolished. Park area 1,635 km². The park has mountainous terrain, rising from an altitude of about 400 meters above sea level in the foothills to the summit of Mount Whitney, the highest in the contiguous 48 states, at 4,421.1 meters. The park borders Kings Canyon National Park. Both parks are managed US National Park Service as a single unit - Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.
The park is best known for its giant sequoias, including an instance named General Sherman is the largest tree on Earth, if you count by the volume of its wood. In 2009, the volume of wood from this tree was just under 1,500 cubic meters. General Sherman tree growing in Giant forest Giant Forest) , which contains five of the ten largest trees in the world by wood volume. Giant forest connected dear Generals(English) Generals Highway), With Grant's Grove(English) Grant Grove) in the national park Kings Canyon, where, among other sequoias, grows General Grant tree . Both species of Sequoia grow in this park - Red and Giant, but Giant Sequoia of large ages grows practically only here, with the exception of a few in neighboring National parks and reserves (Yosemite and others).
Sequoia National Park in California
The park is famous throughout the world for its giant sequoias. One of them is Tree General Sherman- the largest tree on Earth. This tree grows in Giant Forest, which also contains five of the ten largest trees in the world by timber volume.
General Sherman
D General Sherman tree (General Sherman tree) in the Forest of Giants - the most popular tree in the park. It really is largest tree in the world by volume, although not the highest, but one of the highest. Its height 81 meters, the diameter at the base is about 32 meters, and the age is about 3 thousand years.
In addition, the Park has a number of other attractions. The most popular of them is Tunnel Log- a small road tunnel cut right in the middle of a giant sequoia that fell onto the road.
In addition to unique trees, The park is also famous for its caves. There are about 250 of them, one of which extends 32 kilometers in length. Only one cave is open to tourists - Crystal, the second largest in the Park.
The fossil specimens found give us an idea that giant sequoias existed back in the Jurassic period and occupied vast areas in the Northern Hemisphere. Now they can only be found in California and Southern Oregon. Typically, giant sequoias reach a height of 100 m, in diameter up to 11 m. Average life expectancy this huge living organism 2- 4 thousand years. The bark of trees is thick, fibrous, non-flammable. When you touch it, your palm seems to sink into the wood, creating unusual sensations.
The park was established in 1890 in order to protect forest areas formed by sequoias. They grow here two types of sequoias: sequoiadendron giant (mammoth tree) And sequoia evergreen (mahogany). Both of them are trees of enormous size - 90-100 or more m in height and up to 10-11 m in girth, their age reaches 4 thousand years.
The unique combination of age, size and weight of these trees makes them the largest trees and longest living creatures present on planet Earth today. And this is one of the few trees that has adapted to forest fires. The giant sequoia is second in life expectancy only to bristlecone pines, which are found in the arid Sierra Nevada mountains.
The Forest of Giants contains five of the ten largest trees in the world by timber volume. The forest is connected by the Generals Road to Grant Grove in Kings Canyon National Park, where another attraction of the park is located - the General Grant tree.
Sequoia National Park is attractive with mountain landscapes, beautiful waterfalls and alpine meadows. The park is home to many species of animals, including moose, black bear, white-tailed deer, coyote, and bobcat.
Sequoia sempervirens (D. Don) Endl. - Sequoia evergreen, or Red sequoia.
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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 discordant.” In 1858, George Gordon published the etymology of the generic names of a number of genera of coniferous plants proposed by Endlicher, but did not find an explanation for the name “Sequoia”.
In 1868, California State Geologist Josiah Dwight Whitney's Guide to Yosemite The Yosemite Book indicated that the plant was named after Sequoia (George Hess) ( Sequoyah, OK. 1770 - approx. 1843) - chief of the Cherokee Indian tribe, inventor of the Cherokee syllabary (1826) and founder of a newspaper in the Cherokee language. According to Whitney, Endlicher learned about the Indian chief from an article in Country Gentleman, which caught his attention. From subsequent editions The Yosemite Book phrase about the article in Country Gentleman was removed due to its obvious inaccuracy. Endlicher published the title in 1847, died March 28, 1849, and the first issue Country Gentleman was published only on November 4, 1852. IN Country Gentleman It wasn't until January 24, 1856 that an article mentioning Sequoia actually appeared. This article described the tree Sequoia gigantea, and also for the first time it was assumed that it was named after an Indian chief.
In 1860 in the magazine The Gardener's Monthly two articles appeared, in the first of which a certain L. supported the justification of naming the genus of plants after an outstanding Indian leader, and in the second, the editor of the magazine, Thomas Meehan, reported that neither he nor L. no, but it seems quite likely to them.
George Gordon suggested in 1862 that Sequoia derived from lat. sequī - "to 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, and named it completely differently.
It should be noted that in its natural distribution area, sequoia is better known as “redwood” (English Redwood, or Coastal Redwood, or California Redwood), in this area the Redwood and Muir Forest reserves are located; at the same time, plants of the related species Sequoiadendron are known as “giant sequoias”. It is the latter that grow in Sequoia National Park.
Botanical description
Distribution and ecology
It grows in the USA along the Pacific coast on 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 USA from eastern Texas to Maryland, in Hawaii , in New Zealand, Great Britain, Italy, Portugal, South Africa and Mexico. Average heights are 30-750 m above sea level, sometimes trees grow close to the shore, sometimes they climb to a height of up to 920 m. Sequoia loves the humidity that sea air brings with it. The tallest and oldest trees grow in gorges and deep ravines, where streams of moist air can reach all year round and where fogs regularly occur. Trees growing above the fog layer (above 700 m) are shorter and smaller due to drier, windier and cooler growing conditions.
Facts
Trees over 60 m high are very common, many are higher than 90 m.
Sequoia is the tallest tree in the world. This is a real giant that grows in height and width all its life. Sometimes it is called the mammoth tree. The message will tell you in detail about the plant.
A little history
Scientists have found that sequoia grew on Earth more than 100 million years ago! This is evidenced by the found fossils with remains of bark. So this is the tree is the same age as dinosaurs, it was able to survive the ice age!
The Spanish were the first to see giant trees in the mid-18th century during an expedition in the area of modern San Francisco, a city on the west coast of the United States. They were amazed by the giant tree, they called it “mammoth”.
The Austrian botanist S. Endlicher named the tree “sequoia” in honor of the leader of the Cherokee Indian tribe, whose name was George Guest Sequoia.
The giants were taken under protection in America in 1890.
This huge tree is a symbol of California, an American state on the Pacific coast.
Description
Sequoia is an evergreen coniferous tree from the cypress family. Grows in height up to 90 meters (35-storey building) and above, and in width (measured as the diameter of the log trunk at the base) up to 7 meters, weighing more than 1000 tons. To transport one such felled tree you will need a train of 60 cars. Giants live 2-2.5 thousand years and longer.
The trunk is straight and even, rising like a giant column. The crown has the shape of a wide cone, the branches grow horizontally to the ground or with a slight downward slope. The red rust-colored bark (for this reason, sequoia is sometimes called mahogany) is very thick - up to 30 cm, but light, fibrous, porous, so it absorbs moisture well. The needles grow in bunches, are up to 2.5-3 cm long, and can be of different colors - dark green, with a blue or silver tint. The cones are small, up to 3 cm long, oval in shape. Sequoia - monoecious plant, this means that male and female cones grow on the same tree.
Sequoia only tolerates cold poorly; at -20°C it can die, although it once survived the ice age...
Where does it grow
Scientists say that many millions of years ago, gigantic sequoias grew throughout the northern hemisphere of the Earth.
Today, in their natural form, these giants grow in a narrow strip 720 km long along the coast of the Pacific Ocean in North America, California.
Here, ideal conditions for them are high humidity, frequent fogs and the absence of sweltering heat. It's interesting that sequoia never goes far from the coast, You won’t find it further than 70 km from the coast.
This tree is grown artificially in Canada, Mexico, Great Britain, Portugal, Italy, South Africa, and New Zealand. In the Nikitsky Botanical Garden the oldest sequoia in Europe grows in Crimea, which is almost 170 years old.
Sequoia can also be found in the Caucasus, in the south of Central Asia, and in the Transcarpathian regions. Four sequoia trees grow in China, in the Sichuan province.
But wherever this tree is planted artificially, it does not reach such enormous sizes as in its natural homeland in North America.
How does it reproduce
Sequoia reproduces:
- vegetatively - shoots from old stumps;
- seeds.
Sequoia seeds are very light and very small - no more than 3 mm in length and only 0.5 mm in width. It’s amazing how such a huge tree grows from such a tiny seed.
The seeds are in cones that are very similar to ordinary pine cones. There are 150-200 seeds in one cone. They are pollinated by the wind at the end of winter, after 8 months they ripen, then the cone opens and the seeds fall out.
Application
Sequoia used in construction houses; telegraph poles, sleepers, and furniture are made from its wood. It has no smell, so it is used to make containers for tobacco, expensive cigars, and barrels for honey. Since sequoia wood does not rot at all, it is used in the construction of underwater structures and ships.
This gigantic, gigantic tree is planted in parks and gardens.
An interesting use was found for some sequoias in America: the trees were cut down and built on its huge stumps:
- on one - a cafe,
- on the other there is a dance floor,
- on the third - a printing house.
There is no tree on the planet taller than the sequoia that was given its name "Hyperion". It has grown 115 meters in height (this is higher than a 45-story building); it grows in the USA, in Redwood National Park near the city of San Francisco.
The widest tree on earth is the sequoia again! She was called "General Sherman".
It has grown “only” 83 meters in height (higher than a 33-story building), but its diameter is impressive - at the base it is 11 meters, in girth it is almost 32 meters, 15 people cannot hug it!
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Some of the most amazing trees on our planet are sequoias. These majestic giants have been growing tall and wide for thousands of years and today are the tallest plants in the world
Giant sequoias are a subspecies of cypress. The sight of these huge trees, whose trunks and crowns go tens of meters into the air, involuntarily evokes admiration...
The oldest currently known sequoias are more than 3.5 thousand years old.
The average height of trees is about 60 meters, but there are also entire groves over 90 meters high. Today, about fifty sequoias are known whose height exceeds the 105-meter mark
The tallest currently 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, characterized by a smaller height but a larger diameter of trunks. The most voluminous sequoia in the world belongs to this subspecies, the 83.8-meter General Sherman, whose base diameter is 11.1 meters and trunk girth is 31.3 meters. The volume of the tree is 1487 m3
Thanks to the colossal area of trunks, even small cafes and dance floors were set up on the logs of fallen trees.
It is usually difficult to imagine the real scale from a photograph, so I specifically found several photographs in which there are people - to make it easier to compare sizes)