The height of the evergreen sequoia. The maximum height of an evergreen sequoia

Sequoia (lat. Sequoia) is one of the largest and most ancient trees on Earth. These woody plants of the Cypress family can grow up to 76 meters (25-story building), and individual specimens of the sequoia reach a height of more than 110 m. The maximum age is more than three and a half thousand years. Their diameter at the level of the human chest is 9 meters.

Giant sequoias are one of the subspecies of cypress. The sight of these huge trees, whose trunks and crowns go up tens of meters, involuntarily arouses admiration ...

The oldest sequoias known today are over 3,500 years old.

The average height of the trees is about 60 meters, but there are also entire groves over 90 meters high. To date, about fifty sequoias are known, whose height exceeds the 105-meter mark.

The tallest 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, which are distinguished by a smaller height, but a large trunk diameter. The most voluminous sequoia in the world belongs precisely to this subspecies, it is the 83.8-meter "General Sherman", the base diameter of which is 11.1 meters, and the trunk coverage is 31.3 meters. The volume of the tree is 1487 cubic meters

The wood of these trees is inedible for forest pests, and the very thick bark (up to 30 cm in some places) is a thermal shield and protects the tree from fire during fires. This explains such a long life of sequoia.

Sequoia is also very resistant to moisture related rot. It is not uncommon when, when drilling wells in the bosom of streams, a sequoia trunk undamaged by moisture and time was found, which had lain there for more than one thousand years.

Sequoia grows extremely fast, here are a couple of telling examples: one tree reached a diameter of 2.1 meters in 108 years, and the yield of secondary forest per hectare per year was almost 30 cubic meters of wood.

There is a tunnel through a fallen redwood tree in California's Sequoia National Park of the same name.

It is usually difficult to imagine the real scale from a photograph, so a few pictures in which people are present - to make it easier to compare sizes

Interesting Sequoia Facts:

Trees taller than 60 m are very common, many taller than 90 m.

The tallest sequoia, named Hyperion, was discovered in the summer of 2006 by Chris Atkins and Michael Taylor in Redwood National Park north of San Francisco. The tree is 115.5 meters (379.1 ft) high. The researchers said that the woodpecker's damage to the tree at the top prevented the sequoia from reaching a height of 115.8 meters (380 feet).

The previous record holder of the currently growing trees was the Stratospheric Giant, growing in Humboldt Redwoods Park, California. The tree was 112.34 m in August 2000, previously 112.56 m in 2002, and as of 2010 is 113.11 m (371.1 ft).

Prior to Hyperion, the tallest tree of all time was the Dyerville Giant, also in Humboldt Redwoods Park. The height was measured after its fall in March 1991 and was 113.4 meters. The age is estimated to be about 1600 years.

15 currently growing trees have a height of more than 110 m, and 47 trees have a height of more than 105 m.

Some argue that the height of the sequoia, cut down in 1912, was 115.8 m.

The second place in height after sequoia is occupied by Douglas spruce (Menzies pseudo-tsuga). The tallest living pseudo-hemzies of Menzies, "Doerner Fir" (formerly known as "Brummit fir"), is 99.4 m tall,

In 2004, the journal Nature wrote that the maximum theoretical height of a sequoia (or any other tree) is limited to 122-130 meters due to gravity and friction between water and the pores of the wood through which it oozes.

The most voluminous tree among redwoods is "Del Norte Titan" (English) Russian. The volume of this sequoia is estimated at 1044.7 m³, height - 93.57 m, and diameter - 7.22 m. on the Earth of trees, only 15 giant sequoias (sequoiadendrons) are more massive than it. Sequoiadendrons (English: sequoia) are somewhat shorter, but they have a thicker trunk than redwoods (English: red woods). So, the volume of the largest copy of the dendron sequoia "General Sherman" is 1487 m³.

The history of the name of the sequoia tree is quite interesting. This large tree was first called the California pine or mammoth tree, as the ends of the branches bent up, resembled the fangs of mammoths. In 1859, the Swedish botanist Linnaeus decided to name this huge tree in honor of the English commander Wellington. The new name "Wellingtonia Huge" did not exist for long. The Americans decided that such a significant plant should bear the name of their national hero - George Washington. After that, the tree was called "huge Washington".

Disputes over how best to name this tree did not subside. After some time, it nevertheless got its name - Sequoia, in honor of the leader of one of the Indian tribes - Sequoia, it was he who led the liberation struggle against foreign invaders for many years. Some people still call this tree "mammoth".

Scientific classification:

Department: Conifers

Class: Conifers

Order: Pine

Family: Cypress

Subfamily: Sequoioideae

Genus: Sequoia (lat. Sequoia)

On the planet, then the sequoia will certainly receive the palm. It belongs to conifers, sometimes it is also called "mahogany" for the rich color of the trunk. The height of the evergreen sequoia has always been of interest to naturalists, because there are a lot of these trees on the planet, and it was a matter of honor for researchers to find the very best.

Tree Indian?

Although it has been growing on our planet for a long time, it received its name, which we use today, only at the beginning of the 19th century. It is believed that the etymology of this word comes from Sequoyah or Sequoia. That was the name of the Indian leader of the Cherokee tribe, who invented the syllabary for this people.

Be that as it may, today this giant tree causes awe and delight among everyone who saw it live, and the height of the evergreen sequoia is even listed in the Guinness Book of Records.

Along the Pacific coast, in the states of California and Washington, as well as in the south of the Canadian state of the British province, sequoia is most often found, where it grows for many, many years. The researchers found the remains of this tree in ancient rocks that formed during the Jurassic period. And this is neither more nor less than 208 million years BC. It is believed that this tree has come down to us unchanged, just like it was millions of years ago. Therefore, it is referred to as relic rocks.

Unfortunately, only two species have survived to our times - this is an evergreen sequoia and People call them Red and And earlier, as researchers assure, there were much more species, and they grew all over the globe.

Thick and soft bark

Of course, the height of the evergreen sequoia is of great interest. But it will be no less interesting to learn more about some of the features of this giant. The bark of this tree is very thick, up to 30 centimeters. But despite this, it is quite soft, has a fibrous structure and is relatively easy to separate from the trunk. True, after lying for some time in the air, the bark acquires a brownish tint. It is because of this that the sequoia is also called Although the bark is soft, the trunk itself is very strong and dense.

What is visual? This is a huge wide trunk, a dense crown of a conical shape, and the branches grow either completely horizontally or go down a little, like the paws of a spruce. Beautiful dark green leaves reach a length of 15-25 centimeters.

How does it reproduce?

Sequoia is an evergreen cone which reaches 15-22 centimeters in length, produces fertilized fruits every year. At the end of winter, pollination of seeds occurs, and then they ripen for about 9 months. Each fruit contains 3-7 seeds approximately 3-4 mm in size. As the cone dries out, the scales begin to open and the seeds fall to the ground. If they get into a favorable environment, new trees can grow from them. True, the chance for a new life is very negligible. The thing is that the crown of a large tree covers the sun's rays so tightly that young shoots most often die from a lack of good lighting.

So although this tree has quite a lot of fruits every year, most of them die and do not give offspring. Natural selection.

Excellent wood

112.83 meters

What is the tallest sequoia tree in the world? This question did not give scientists peace of mind for a long time, and after many years of measurements and research, they finally found the largest giant. It turned out to be the Stratospheric Giant, which now grows in the Humboldt Redwoods National Park. This sequoia grew exactly 112 meters 83 centimeters in height. True, the last time it was measured more than ten years ago, in 2004. So it sure has grown.

Prior to this, the limiting height of the evergreen sequoia was in a tree called Giant Dyerville, which also grew in Humboldt Redwoods. In 1991, after bad weather, it fell, and when they measured the distance from the base to the top, the figure turned out to be: 113 meters 40 centimeters. The age of the Giant Dyerville was determined at 1600 years.

But they say that in modern history there was a tree even higher! And they cut it down in 1812. His high-altitude record is 115 meters 80 centimeters. Biologists believe that the maximum growth of the sequoia cannot exceed 130 meters, because the forces of gravity will not allow the juices to rise higher. True, so far no one has found trees of this size.

How many giants are on planet Earth?

And yet, every traveler who has been in the shade of this tree is fascinated by its unusualness and some ancient statics of evergreen sequoia (height). All travelers love to take photos against the background of these giants. Pictures of tourists are especially popular when they try to grab the trunk of a relic tree as a whole group, but sometimes there are not enough hands. Yes, such a huge growth requires a solid foundation. The trunk in diameter of some trees reaches several meters. The largest sequoia reached 7 meters at the base in diameter.

This is a real giant on our planet. Today, about 15 trees grow on Earth, the height of which reaches more than 110 meters. Scientists also counted 47 sequoias, which stretched more than 105 meters.

Does sequoia grow in Russia?

Basically, this giant tree is found in America on the Pacific coast. Sometimes they grow near the coast, but mostly they are located within 30-750 meters above sea level. This tree loves good humidity, so in dry places it is doomed to death. Some seeds successfully climbed even higher, gave their shoots and the trees took root well there. In any case, there are sequoias that grow well at an altitude of 920 meters above sea level.

This unique giant is very beautiful and fascinates with its size. Therefore, many national nature reserves in Europe successfully plant this tree, which, with proper care, reaches a relatively large size in the middle lane.

In Russia, sequoia can be found in the Crimea and Transcaucasia. The warm climate of these territories allows relic trees to grow to a very decent size. Of course, these sequoias are relatively young, they are no more than 200-250 years old. But on the other hand, there is a chance that if the climate does not change, they will grow for many more centuries to the delight of others.

Only one tree was honored with the name of the people's leader. So lucky was the "giant pine" that the Iroquois Indian tribe from North America, wishing to perpetuate the memory of their outstanding leader Sekwu, called his name. The Iroquois leader Sekwu led the liberation struggle of the Iroquois against foreign enslavers, was the first public educator, invented the alphabet for the Cherokee tribe.

Numerous attempts have been made to rename this tree. So, immediately after the discovery of sequoia by Europeans, they called it a California pine, and later called it a mammoth tree for the resemblance of old sagging branches to mammoth tusks. Some time passed, and the English botanist Lindley, who first scientifically described this tree, gave it a new name - wellingtonia in honor of the English commander Wellington, who distinguished himself in the battle with Napoleon's troops near Waterloo. The Americans also decided to do their bit and hastened to christen the sequoia washingtonia in memory of their first president, George Washington. But the priority remained with the Iroquois.

sequoias (Sequoioideae) - a subfamily of plants of the Cypress family ( Cupressaceae), previously considered as an independent family.

The subfamily includes three genera:

• Sequoia (sequoia): the only modern species is evergreen sequoia ( Sequoia sempervirens).
• sequoiadendron (Sequoiadendron): the only modern species is the giant sequoiadendron ( Sequoiadendron giganteum).
• metasequoia (Metasequoia): the only modern species is the relic Metasequoia glyptostroboid (Metasequoia glyptostroboides).

What is interesting about this tree? Sequoia is one of the most unusual and majestic trees. Numerous travelers have always enthusiastically described and describe the sequoia, endowing it with the most flattering epithets, admiring its extraordinary size, marveling at its longevity and monumentality. Only by a few meters are the largest sequoia trees inferior in height to the mighty representative of the plant world - the almond-leaved eucalyptus from Australia. And in terms of the volume of the trunk, resembling a giant column, and longevity, the sequoia eclipsed all known trees. Crowned far in the sky with dense, wide crowns, these trees reach the height of the spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress, or the 56th floor of a modern building.

The diameter of the trunk of some sequoia trees is 20-23 meters, and the weight of wood of one tree sometimes exceeds 1000 tons. More than 2000 cubic meters of wood pulp is produced by one tree. Only a train of 60 wagons can transport such a giant. Avid for all sorts of sensations, Americans have repeatedly surprised Europeans by demonstrating the size of this tree. So, at one of the exhibitions in Europe, two cross sections of stumps of old sequoias were exhibited. On one of them, a piano with an orchestra of musicians and an ensemble of dancers of 35 people were freely placed, on the other, a printing house was built, where the newspaper “Bulletin of the Giant Tree” was published. On the eve of the opening of the Paris International Exhibition of 1900, among other American wonders, the largest board in the world, which was specially made from the trunk of a large sequoia, was widely advertised. However, the Europeans did not manage to see this board, since the length of the board exceeded 100 meters and not a single captain undertook to transport oversized cargo across the ocean. So ingloriously ended this advertising idea, which cost the life of a unique monument of nature.

Interesting stories about the sequoia have long been included in all popular publications about plants. They often recall how an enterprising American set up a restaurant with 50 seats in the old hollow trunk of one giant sequoia, and a garage for tourists' cars in the trunk of another tree felled by a storm. A kind of tunnel in the trunk of the huge Wawona Tree sequoia growing in Yosemite National Park (California, USA) is also widely advertised. The tunnel was laid back in 1881, and during the construction of a modern highway, it was significantly expanded. Now not only cars, but also buses of impressive dimensions pass freely in it.

One enterprising businessman piecemeal removed the bark from a large sequoia to a height of 25 meters. To do this, scaffolding was erected around the tree, as in the construction of a multi-storey building, and five people removed the bark for three months. The numbered parts of the bark were re-folded in San Francisco and put on display for a fee, from the outside or from the inside, for which an entrance hole was left. At the same time, it was reported that the miracle tree, having lost its bark, seemed not to have suffered at all and continued to grow, as before. A peculiar building was furnished, a piano was placed in it, and up to 100 people gathered for concerts at the same time.

The sequoia is certainly present in the stories of the mythical lumberjack giant, the hero of North American folklore, Paul Beneyan. In the sequoia cutting area, he, along with his blue bull Beibu, demonstrates extraordinary strength and amazing dexterity.

In ancient prehistoric times, sequoia grew all over the globe. Sequoia forests also grew on the territory of our country. It was distributed over almost the entire northern hemisphere up to the latitude of the island of Svalbard. Now only in California the giant sequoia has been preserved along the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. After the predatory destruction of this tree, about 30 small groves remained in the place of vast mighty forests. The most valuable sequoia foci, although with a great delay, are declared protected, and, like individual trees that have received personal names, are protected by law. Here you can meet the mighty "father of the forests", and in a pair of tall sequoia "forest mother", and the veteran "gray-haired giant". Americans consider the 3,500-year-old "General Sherman" to be the oldest sequoia, towering almost 100 meters in the national park at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, its trunk diameter is about 15 meters. Practical Americans calculated that 30 six-room country houses could be built from the wood of this giant.

And one of these extraordinary representatives of the forest world, the Iroquois has recently given a name that is equally dear to the workers of the whole world - the name of Lenin. This was written in his poem by the poet Andrei Voznesensky, who visited the sequoia park while in California.

A lot has already been said about the longevity of the sequoia. Numerous studies show that its age often reaches 6000 years. Some sequoias are many centuries older than the Egyptian pyramids.

It is important to note that the longevity of the sequoia is put at the service of science. With the help of these ancient representatives of the plant world, scientists managed to look into the depths of millennia and obtain reliable data on the climate of bygone times using annual rings on the cross sections of trunks. Reacting to changes in the weather, the trees, in strict accordance with the amount of precipitation each year, increased either thicker or thinner layers of wood - growth rings. Scientists examined the trunks of over 540 of these giants, and these materials made it possible to track the weather for more than 2000 years. It became known, for example, that 2000, 900 and 600 years ago there were periods very rich in precipitation, while periods 1200 and 1400 years from us were characterized by extremely long and severe droughts.

American scientists also established the weather and a closer time using the method described. It turned out that 1900 and 1934 were marked for the North American continent by the most severe droughts in the last 1200 years.

Because of the reddish, as if impregnated with carmine wood, sequoia is sometimes called mahogany. Its wood is valued not only for its original color, but also for its unusual physical properties: it is light, like that of aspen, and porous, like that of paulownia, it perfectly resists decay in soil and water, and is easily amenable to any processing.

The bark of the sequoia is much thicker than that of other tree species: 70-80 centimeters. Reliably covering the trunk, it absorbs water like a sponge. Thanks to this structure of the bark, these trees are not afraid of fires.

The sequoia is fast growing and accumulates ten times more wood per year than our birch, which is considered by arborists to be a fast-growing species.

Like other trees, the giant sequoia has a number of original decorative forms, highly valued in green building: with golden, silver, blue and even variegated needles, as well as with a narrow, almost columnar or weeping crown.

In its long life, the sequoia has undergone many botanical changes. In the old days, for example, it numbered up to 15 species, and now there are only two of them: the giant sequoia, which was discussed here, and very close to it, no less majestic evergreen sequoia. Botanists distinguish them only by a number of minor features, and some even refer to different genera. The evergreen sequoia is often larger than the giant sequoia. The largest ("founder's tree"), growing in California near the city of Eureka, reaches a height of 132 meters.

Currently, dendrologists and gardeners are doing a lot of work on the artificial breeding of sequoia. It is grown from the lightest and very small (up to 3 millimeters in diameter) seeds. 150-200 of them are contained in small cones, somewhat reminiscent of Scots pine cones. The efforts of our scientists to acclimatize sequoia did not immediately give encouraging results. Only after years of experimentation did it begin to grow in many parks in the Crimea, the Caucasus, in the south of Central Asia and in Transcarpathia. In our conditions, it can tolerate frosts of no more than 18-20 degrees. The seeds obtained from sequoias acclimatized in our country germinated poorly at first, and only after the use of artificial pollination was it possible to increase their germination to 50-60 percent. Sequoia vegetative propagation is now well mastered: cuttings or grafting.

The pioneers of the acclimatization of giant trees in our country were botanists from the Nikitsky Botanical Garden. Sequoia has been cultivated here since 1850. In Nikitsky Garden there is the oldest copy of the giant sequoia in Europe, in many parks of the Southern Crimea and the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, it has now become an almost obligatory tree. The height of some of its specimens (in the park of the village of Frunzenskoye in the Crimea, in the Batumi Botanical Garden on Cape Verde and in other places) exceeds 50 meters.

You can also get acquainted with sequoia greenhouse plants in Leningrad, Moscow, Minsk, Kyiv and some other cities of the former USSR.

Trees of the Taxodiaceae family ( Taxodiaceae). According to one of the classification systems, the Taxodiaceae family belongs to the subclass Coniferous ( Pinidae or Coniferae), which, in turn, is included in the class Conifers or Pinopsida ( Pinopsida), belonging to the department Gymnosperms ( Gymnospermae).

The only species of the genus is evergreen sequoia, or red ( S. sempervirens) - considered a symbol of the US state of California, it is one of the tallest and longest-lived trees on Earth, also famous for its beautiful, straight-grained and rot-resistant wood.

The height of the evergreen sequoia is about 90 m, and the record one is 113 m. It is noted in the Redwood National Park in California. The diameter of the trunk reaches 6–11 m and can increase by 2.5 cm per year. The sequoia has the most valuable wood among taxodies with a red core and pale yellow or white sapwood (sapwood is the layers of wood located between the core and the cambium). The bark of the tree is thick, reddish, deeply furrowed. The quality of wood varies not only depending on the place of growth, but also within the same trunk. The crown is narrow, starting above the lower third of the trunk. Oval buds and short shoots with flat bluish-gray needles give the sequoia beauty and splendor. The root system is formed by lateral roots that go deep into the soil.

The evergreen sequoia is one of the longest-lived plants on Earth: its age is more than 2000 years (the oldest known tree is about 2200 years old). Maturity occurs at 400-500 years.

The reproductive organs of sequoias (like all conifers) are strobili - modified shortened shoots bearing special leaves - sporophylls , on which spore-forming organs - sporangia are formed . There are male strobili (they are called microstrobiles) and female (megastrobili). Sequoia is a monoecious plant (microstrobils and megastrobils develop on the same tree). Microstrobili are solitary, they are placed on the tops of the shoots or in the axils of the leaves. Megastrobili are collected in small oval-shaped single cones. One of the features of the sequoia is the ability to produce abundant shoots that do not differ in growth rate and life expectancy from seedlings grown from seeds. Sequoia forests in America consist mainly of trees grown in this way.

At the end of the Cretaceous and in the Tertiary period, the evergreen sequoia, along with other representatives of taxodiaceae, was widespread in the northern hemisphere, but now the remains of forests with its participation have been preserved only in a limited area of ​​western North America, namely, on a narrow strip of the Pacific coast from Monterey County to northern California to the Chetco River in southern Oregon. The length of this strip is about 720 km, it is located at an altitude of 600 to 900 m above sea level. The evergreen sequoia needs a very humid climate, so it does not go further from the coast than 32-48 km, remaining in the zone of influence of humid sea air.

For the first time, sequoia forests were discovered by Europeans on the Pacific coast in 1769. By the color of the wood, the sequoia then got its name "mahogany" ( Redwood), which has survived to this day. In 1847, the Austrian botanist Stefan Endlicher singled out these plants as an independent genus and gave him the name "sequoia" in honor of the Sequoia (Sequoyah, 1770-1843), an outstanding leader of the Iroquois, who invented the alphabet of the Cherokee tribe.

Because of the beautiful wood and fast growth, sequoia is specially grown in forestry. Light, dense, not subject to rotting and insect attacks, sequoia wood is widely used as a building and joinery material, goes to the manufacture of furniture, sleepers, telegraph poles, railway cars, paper and tiles. Lack of smell allows it to be used in the tobacco and food industries. Boxes and boxes for cigars and tobacco, barrels for storing honey and molasses are made from it. Because of the beautiful wood and fast growth, sequoia is specially grown in forestry. Sequoia is also used as an ornamental plant, planting it for this in gardens and parks.

Two other species are close to the evergreen sequoia, each of which is also the only representative of its genus. The first species is the giant sequoiadendron or mammoth tree ( Sequoiadendron giganteum); the second species is the glyptostrobus metasequoia ( Metasequoia glyptostroboides).

Sequoiadendron giant

or the mammoth tree was named so because of the gigantic size and outward resemblance of its huge hanging branches to mammoth tusks. The evergreen sequoia and the giant sequoia are similar in appearance, but differ from each other in the shape of the leaves, the size of the cones, and a number of other features.

Like the evergreen sequoia, the giant sequoia was widespread in the northern hemisphere at the end of the Cretaceous and in the Tertiary, now only about 30 small groves have survived, located on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada in California at an altitude of 1500-2000 m above sea level.

The giant sequoiadendron was described in 1853, but after that its name changed several times. The appearance of the tree impressed the Europeans so much that they began to assign the names of the greatest people of that time to it. So, the famous English botanist D. Lindley, who first described this plant, called it wellingtonia in honor of the English Duke of Wellington, the hero of the Battle of Waterloo. The Americans, in turn, proposed the name of Washington (or Washington Sequoia) in honor of the first US President D. Washington, who led the liberation movement against the British. But since the names washingtonia and wellingtonia had already been assigned to other plants, in 1939 this plant received its current name.

The giant sequoiadendron is an unusually majestic and monumental tree, reaching a height of 80-100 m with a trunk diameter of up to 10-12 m. It is distinguished by longevity and can probably live up to 3 or even 4 thousand years.

Because of the durable, rot-resistant wood, sequoiadendrons have been rapaciously exterminated in their homeland since the time of the first explorers. The remaining old trees (and there are only about 500 of them) are declared protected. The largest sequoiadendrons have their own names: "Father of the Forests", "General Sherman", "General Grant" and others. These trees are real giants of the plant world. It is known, for example, that an orchestra and three dozen dancers freely fit on the saw cut of one of them, and cars pass through the tunnels made in the lower parts of the trunks of some other trees. The weight of one of the largest of these trees - "General Sherman" - is about 2,995,796 kg.

Sequoiadendron as an ornamental plant is bred in many countries of the world, for example, it has perfectly taken root in the parks and gardens of the southwestern part of Europe, where it was introduced back in the middle of the 19th century.

Sequoiadendrons are used not only for decorative purposes. The rotting wood of the sequoiadendron is used in construction work, for the manufacture of tiles and fences. The thick bark of the tree (30–60 cm) is used as spacers in fruit containers.

Metasequoia glyptostrobusa

differs from other taxodia (including sequoia and sequoiadendron genera close to it) by the arrangement of leaves and scales. This plant was first known only from fossils, so the discovery of a living metasequoia (in 1946) aroused the interest of biologists around the world. Subsequent expeditions made it possible to establish the range of this plant. Now the metasequoia is preserved only in a small area (about 8000 m 2) in the mountains of the northeast of the Chinese province of Sichuan and in the neighboring province of Hubei at an altitude of 700–1350 m above sea level. The main part of the metasequoia (about 1000 mature trees in total) is concentrated in the province of Hubei, in a valley called the Valley of the Water Fir after the local name of the tree. Here grow trees with an age of 600 years or more, reaching 30–35 m in height and 2 m in diameter.

The natural habitats of the metasequoia are mixed forests along the slopes of mountain gorges, along streams and in hollows. In addition, it is often found in the surrounding villages, where among the locals there is a custom to plant young trees brought from the forest along the rice fields and near the houses.

In the past, the range of this genus was extremely wide, as evidenced by the fossil remains of metasequoia found almost everywhere in Asia, North America, Greenland and Svalbard. This genus arose, apparently, in the Cretaceous period (from 132 to 66 million years ago) and flourished in the Oligocene epoch of the Tertiary period (from 37 to 25 million years ago). Metasequoia forests at that time covered vast areas in the northern hemisphere, but, unlike the modern species, metasequoias of the past grew near wetlands of forests.

Now metasequoia began to be grown in many countries outside its natural range. It develops best in the humid subtropics, but it also grows in cold climates (Alaska, Norway, Finland) and in countries with a hot continental climate. As a rule, it is grown as an ornamental plant - a slender metasequoia with a pyramidal crown and a beautiful reddish-brown trunk is the decoration of any park. The wood of this tree is not of high quality, however, in a number of countries with an optimal climate for the development of metasequoia, attempts have been made to introduce its forestry.

Natalia Novoselova

Here is the definition of this tree can be found in Wikipedia:

General Sherman- a copy of the giant sequoiadendron ( Sequoiadendron giganteum) growing in the "Giant Forest" of the Sequoia National Park in California, USA. In terms of volume, it is the largest tree on Earth. The height of the General Sherman tree is 83.8 m, the volume of the trunk is estimated at 1487 m³, the weight is 1900 tons, and the age is 2300-2700 years.

The General Sherman tree is the largest and heaviest living organism on our planet. However, it is neither the tallest sequoia (this record belongs to the Hyperion tree, which belongs to the evergreen sequoia species), nor the tallest representative of sequoiadendrons (95 m high specimens are known, but they have a smaller volume). It is also known that the Crannell Creek Giant tree, cut down in the mid-1940s, Crannell Creek Giant) species evergreen sequoia, growing near the city of Trinidad, had about 15-25% more volume than General Sherman

Let's take a closer look at it...

Photo 2.

In the nineteenth century, the area where the famous tree grows, the explorer John Muir (John Muir), called the "Giant Forest" when he discovered giant sequoias. The name of this part of the park, "Giant Forest", remains to this day. Many tourists describe the General Sherman tree, striking in its size, as a red-orange "stone", the top of which cannot be seen.

Tourists come to the park specifically to see the General Sherman tree, named after Civil War hero General William Sherman, and take pictures. Next to the sequoia, they seem so fragile and small.

Photo 3.

For a long time it was believed that General Sherman's tree was over three thousand years old, but recent research has determined its exact age - exactly two thousand years. So it's not the oldest tree in the world.

The oldest tree in the world, a special species of California pine, was 4,484 years old when it was cut down in 1965. Sequoias were also cut down, the age of which reached about 3000 years. It is believed that 5,000 trees still exist on Earth.

In the winter of 2006, the tree of General Sherman lost part of its crown, the largest branch of the tree fell off, the diameter of which was about two meters, and the length was about 30 meters.

Photo 4.

Scientists are worried, is the tree really dying? However, they came to the conclusion that this incident does not indicate any problems in the condition of the tree, but can only be a natural defense mechanism against adverse weather conditions.

When the branches fell to the ground, the fence around the tree and the road leading to it were destroyed. Even after this, General Sherman's tree did not lose its status as the largest tree on the planet.

A special path leads to the tree of General Sherman, and even people with disabilities can see this miracle. At the end of the path, brick tiles are laid out, which show where the roots of the tree reach.

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The giant's trunk grows nearly an inch in diameter each year. The General Sherman tree is still growing and, according to the California State Park website, annually adds enough wood to build a five or six-room house.

One of the secrets to giant sequoias' longevity is their thick, tough, fire-resistant bark. But sometimes, during the frequent fires in southern California, the tree burns through.

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No one can say how long a sequoia can live (and scientifically, a giant sequoiadendron), but researchers meet trees here that are estimated to be 3,000 years old! (About this period in Eurasia, mankind learned to process copper and bronze).

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Have you ever thought about how much oxygen such a tree can give out? About 120 kg per year - this will be enough for a family of three to four people!

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Several numbers. The circumference of the trunk near the ground itself is 31.3 m. The crown span is 39.6 meters. The total weight of the tree is 1910 tons, the weight of the trunk is 1121 tons.

General Sherman is found in literature: in Upton Sinclair's fairy tale "Gnomobile - gnome news about gnomes", as well as in Ilf and Petrov's book "One-story America".

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