Giant Sequoia

(Sequoiadendron giganteum)

Color Photographs: © Nearctica.com

Color Photographs: © by and courtesy of Charles Webber, California Academy of Sciences

Giant Redwood (Sequoiadendron giaganteum)

Identifying Characters: The immense size of the trees, their restricted range in the mountains of eastern California, and the nearly scale-like foliage will immediately identify this species.

Similar Species: Giant Sequoia might be confused with Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). However the two species have entirely separate ranges. Redwood is limited to the coastal regions of California and Giant Redwood is found in the mountains of eastern California.

Measurements: Giant Sequoia is one of the largest trees on earth. The species is topped in height only by the Redwood trees of the California coast. Mature individuals range in height from150 to 200 feet with the largest Giant Redwoods reaching heights of 250 feet. Trees up to 25 feet in diameter are known.

Cones: Cones ovate, 1.5 to 3 inches in length; cone scales diamond-shaped and flat on the outside, dark red-brown when mature; cones hang downward and the end of a small branch, taking 2 years to mature.

Needles: Needles almost scale-like, very short, triangular, lance-shaped, pointed at the apex, alternate, crowded, and overlapping; needles in roughly two sizes, 0.15 to 0.25 inches and 0.5 inches, although intermediate sizes exit; color blue green with 2 white lines.

Bark: Bark red-brown, fibrous, very thick and deeply grooved into scaly ridges.

Native Range: The natural range of Giant Sequoia is restricted to about 75 groves scattered over a 420-km (260-mi) belt, nowhere more than about 24 km (15 mi) wide, extending along the west slope of the Sierra Nevada in central California. The northern two-thirds of the range, from the American River in Placer County southward to the Kings River, takes in only eight widely disjunct groves. The remaining groves, including all the large ones, are concentrated between the Kings River and the Deer Creek Grove in southern Tulare County. Varying in size from less than 1 to 1619 ha (1 to 4,000 acres), the groves occupy a total area of 14 410 ha (35,607 acres). (Silvics of North America. 1990. Agriculture Handbook 654.)

Habitat: Giant Sequoia is found on rocky soils in scattered groves in wet mountain sites, usually in canyons or on slopes.

Notes: Giant Sequoia holds a number of records or near records. It is commonly considered the most massive living organism, although to be fair about it, most of the tree consists of dead, not living tissues. The species might also be considered the widest tree at its base with widths up to 25 feet in diameter and more. However other species also have some claim on widest. A specimen of Bald Cypress from Oaxaca in Mexico claims to be 36 feet in diameter, although the "trunk"may be the result of the fusion of several trunks. Several species of figs in the Old World tropics may have a wider diameter, but again they result from the fusion of multple original "trunks". Finally Giant Sequoia has some of the oldest living organisms. Ages of up to 3000 years have been recorded, surpassed in the trees only by the Bristlecone Pine.

Map from Silvics of North America, U.S. Forest Service.