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| Sequoia sempervirens - Redwood |
Sequoia sempervirens commonly known as Redwood is provides
the tallest tree and possibly the most majestic tree in the world – about 367 feet
in California where the species lives for upwards of two thousand years. In
Europe at the comparatively young age of about one hundred and ten years, and
in Britain it provides their greatest volume of timber per acre – over 20,000
cubic feet (some 600 tons) in the famous ‘Charles Ackers Redwood Grove’ at
Leighton near Welshpool in Montgomeryshire – the property of the Royal Forestry
Society of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The native habitat of the tree is a strip, averaging some
thirty-five miles wide, of the Pacific coastal regions of North America,
stretching from about one hundred miles south of San Francisco up to south-west
Oregon. The land ranges from sea level to some three thousand feet. Sequoia honors
a famous half-bred Cherokee chief, Sequoyah. The tree was introduced to Europe
via Russia in 1843.
The shoots are green at first, becoming brown. The buds are
solitary, and surrounded by green scales which later turn brown. The secondary
shoots bear flattened rigid needles spirally arranged, but with a twist at
their base which brings them into two ranks. The needles produced early and
late in the season are shorter than those when growth is at its height. All are
slightly ribbed, and are bright green on the upper surface, and have nearly
white stomatal lines underneath. Sometimes the color of the needles is more
bronze or copper than green, especially after being scorched in a cold winter.
The best appearance of tree is when the new pale green needles fringe each
branch in June.
Both sexes of flowers are on the same tree, the small yellow
males arising at the tips of the shoots, and the small green females well
behind them. The brown elliptical cones are about 2 – 3 cm long, and ripen in
the first season; after opening and shedding small winged seeds the cones persist
on the tree for many years.
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| Sequoia sempervirens - Redwood |
The bark is rust or foxy-red, fibrous, soft and spongy,
becoming very thick and deeply fissured with age. Underneath the bark is a hard
inner layer that is bright cinnamon-red. Where side branches have fallen away, distinct
cavities are left in the bark. The trunk broadens at the base and is
irregularly buttressed.
The wood has a thin zone of pale yellow sapwood, and a
red-brown heartwood. It is soft, strong and naturally durable – useful for
interlaced fencing, garden furniture and general purposes. The tree is one of
the few conifers to produce suckers. Coppice shoots arise from the stump when a
tree is felled – one of the few conifers besides Yew, with this property. Blown
trees left lying in the forest hve been known to throw vertical shoots from the
upper side of the horizontal trunk, which themselves develop into large trees,
as is evident at Leighton.
