Tree of the Week

Pieter Severynen's "Tree of the week" is always a welcome change of pace here, and particularly so after a tumultuous week. This week Pieter continues his three-part look at California's superlative trees. This week, the largest.

Giant Sequoia – Seqoiadendron giganteum

"Ancestors of the redwood family grew worldwide some 175 million years ago. But after the Ice Ages the three remaining species: Giant Sequoia, Coast Redwood, Sequoia sempervirens and Dawn Redwood, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, are now limited to small areas. The Giant Sequoias of California’s Western Sierra Nevada, also known as Big Trees, grow in some 75 groves scattered at elevations of 4,600 to 7,000 feet.  Most trees are located in the Kings Canyon and Sequoia National parks and Giant Sequoia National Monument. Well-intentioned human interference has caused their density to decline. A century of fire suppression promoted heavy undergrowth of fir trees that prevented sequoia seedlings from getting established. In addition, the incidence of naturally occurring, rather frequent, low-intensity fires that are not harmful to the trees but actually clear the soil for the seedlings has dwindled. Meanwhile, very damaging, hard to fight, high-intensity fires started take place. So since 1970 controlled burns are used to mimic the original pattern.

"Since giant sequoias grow very fast, 2 to 3 feet a year, and keep on growing and adding girth, sometimes for over 3,000 years, they produce a huge amount of wood. The General Sherman tree, the world’s champion largest tree in terms of volume, is 36.5 feet in diameter at its base, still 14 feet in diameter at 180 feet high, stands 275 feet tall, and contains an estimated 52,500 cubic feet of wood. In our gardens we can expect 60- to 100-foot tall, 30- to 50-foot wide, dense, cold hardy, pyramidal, evergreen trees. Branchlets are covered with small, overlapping, pointed scales. Fibrous brown bark, up to two feet thick, protects the tree against fire and insects. Cones, 2 to 3 inches long, hang on for many years. Wood is decay-resistant but brittle. Several garden varieties, including a weeping one, are available. From its first western naming in 1833, botanists kept disagreeing about the proper classification; it was not until 1939 and after three more names that J. Buchholz gave the tree its current designation."

Thanks, Pieter.
Thoughts? Comments?
E-mail Pieter: plseve@earthlink.net
Photo Credit: The General Grant tree in Kings Canyon National Park, Tulare County, by the National Park Service.

plseve@earthlink.net

Comments

[Dave]

Sequoia National Park is a wonderfully surreal experience. A photograph alone cannot convey how massive these trees really are. It's something you have to experience in person. A spring or fall weekday is often the best day to travel to Sequoialand when tourists are not cheek to jowl. I love Yosemite, but I love Sequoia National Park even more.

[GeekSeek]

To parallel the grotesque nature of our economy, here are some "interesting" trees:

http://tinyurl.com/28px2a

[anon1137]

Nice article, Pieter.

I like to go to Sequoia National Park to see these trees. They're very impressive - the largest living things on the planet, as I recall.

The valley smog seems to be encroaching ever closer to their habitat. I wonder if they'll still be around in 100 or 200 years . . . .

[MyLessThanPrimeBeef]

GeekSeek, the interesting thing about the last tree at the bottom is that originally, there was a real acacia tree in the middle of the Sahara desert. As luck would have it, some drunk Libyan truck driver smashed into it (don't ask how) and killed the famous 'Tree of Tenere.' Now, the one you see, it's a just metal sculpture.

In any case, nice pics of Baobab. and the Circus Trees of Erlandson, which, I believe one can see in Gilroy, at the Belfonte Gardens.

To me, these Circus trees are not 'grotesque.' What is grotesque is actually the human arrogance as mentioned in Peter's article - human interference, i.e. fire supression, instead of allowing frequent, low intensity fires as they naturally occur, is killing the giant trees. The economic parallel is the foolish attempts of Greenspan to prevent mild and frequent recessions (akin to frequenty, low intensity fires), in his pursuit of the Goldilocks fantansy, that is killing the economy right now, for we are faced with the possibility of a big nasty one today. All the mis-allocated resources have not been washed away in Schumpeter's 'creative destruction,' which is a natural part of the business cycle. You might say Greenspan violated the law of Conservation of Recession. You can't go against Nature, material or business. And in going against natural business cycle, injecting the patient with Viagra rather than advising rest, he and Bernanke are just as bad as the worst polluters.

[MyLessThanPrimeBeef]

By the way, we do kill those we love.

It's really sad.

The prehistoric paintings at caves like Tres Freres are disappearing because the carbon and humidity brought by the the 'innocuous' human visitors, we are not talking about looters here, who did nothing except simply being there to 'adore' the paintings.

Same with the paintings in ancient Egyptian tombs and many other places.

People say, You are a nature lover? You should go visit the glaciers before they disappear. Well, imagine billions of people taking that advice. The glaciers will melt in no time with the visitors and the logistic support necessary for these modern humans.

Everyone wants to go back to nature. They can't stand the concrete jungle that is the city. They love the fresh air, the babbling brooks, they want to be another Henry Thoreau. Well, if everyone goes back to nature, nature will be dead in no time.

One Henry Thoreau, how cute. A billion Henry Thoreaus, nature no more.

Face it, Nature can't survive human love.

I write this because I remember the rangers telling us at the Muir Woods National Monument that walking too close to the redwood trees damages their roots and will kill them.

[GeekSeek]

MLTPB: I like the depth of thought but would only emphasize the need for heavy regulation by somehow disinterested parties. We need "untouchables."

The tree in the desert -- I thought that was a cell tower!

[GeekSeek]

MLTPB: Question... what made you mention Calcutta in a couple of previous posts... ? Was there some revival of O' Calcutta around L.A. somewhere? I ask, not because it's related to trees (though it is if you push it far enough) but rather because the Lehman Brothers dude Fuld just cut a trip short from India, and an economist whose blog I read and who advises the Fed has been in India for the last week as well.

[MyLessThanPrimeBeef]

GeekSeek, it was some lady comparing LA to Calcutta last week and that reminded me of the pun on 'Oh, Calcutta.' You know more than I do about all those important people going to India. I wonder what's up?

[GeekSeek]

Maybe we were over there learning how to deal with extreme poverty on a national basis? Or to learn why the Indians, despite having a much less homogenous income distribution than we do, report in polls that they are "happier" than we are?

Weird though... you'd think that the head of Lehman, with what his company is facing, would have been here in the states making sure he's ready for the storm. Maybe he was hitting someone up for a loan.