REDWOOD 



(Sequoia Sempervirens) 



THIS tree's color is responsible for its name. It is sometimes 

 spoken of as coast redwood to distinguish it from bigtree which 

 grows in the interior of California. In European markets it is known 

 as California redwood to distinguish it from other redwoods growing in 

 distant parts of the world. Its botanical name, Sequoia semperyirens, 

 means evergreen sequoia. The other species of sequoia is also evergreen. 

 In reality, the coast redwood is less of an evergreen than the bigtree is, 

 because the leaves of redwood turn brown two years before they fall, but 

 there are always plenty of green leaves on the branches. The leaves are 

 from one-quarter to one-half inch in length. 



The geographical range of redwood covers about 6,000 square miles, 

 but the commercial range is scarcely one-fifth as much. The redwood 

 belt extends 500 miles along the Pacific coast from southern Oregon to 

 central California. It varies from ten to thirty miles in width. It is 

 strictly a fog belt tree, and grows poorly outside the region of ocean fog, 

 which seldom reaches an altitude more than 2,800 feet above sea level. 

 Where fog is thick and frequent, and soil is moist and otherwise suitable, 

 redwood forests have grown in such luxuriance that no species in this 

 country exceeds it. Stands running much over 100,000 feet per acre are 

 frequent, and it is said 1,000,000 feet have been cut from a single acre. 



Redwood cones are one inch or less in length. They ripen in one 

 season. Seeds are quite small, and are equipped with wings. The 

 bark is thick, but is much thinner than the bark of bigtrees, though it is 

 in great ridges like the bark of that species. The habits of the two 

 species, as to form of crown, are similar. Young redwoods, particularly 

 if they grow in the open, develop symmetrical and conical crowns which 

 they retain until the trunks are a foot or more in diameter. Lower 

 limbs die and fall off after that, and old trees have crowns so small that 

 it would seem impossible that they could supply the wood-building 

 material for trunks so large. That the growth should be slow under 

 such circumstances is to be expected. The ages of mature trees vary 

 from 500 to 800 years, but an extreme age of 1,373 years is on record. 

 The average is, therefore, considerably below that of bigtrees. 



Redwoods grow as tall as bigtrees, but do not equal them in 

 diameter of trunk, though trees twenty feet in diameter occur. 



A noticeable feature of the forests is that, in a given stand, 

 nearly all trees are of the same height, irrespective of size of trunk. 

 The crowns go up to the light and when they reach the common level 



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