photo by Victoria Stöcker
Tallest Trees
Coast redwoods are amazing. They are the tallest living organisms on our planet (and in the observable universe), stretching to 379 feet. When basking in the majesty of old growth redwood forests, we are merely among their âfeet.â Out of sight, high in their crowns, complex life bustles. It wasnât until the botanist, explorer and Humboldt State professor Stephen C. Sillett, invented methods to climb the tallest trees that anyone knew their precise height or the mass of life in their canopies. Perhaps one of the more curious species discovered in the redwood canopy is an unnamed Copepod, which is usually devoured by Baleen whales. The mystery remains how this ocean native ended up with residence in the sky. The trees reside on a 450-mile sliver of land that spans from Californiaâs central coast to southwest Oregon, thick with summer fog and winter rains. The range includes large alluvial flats along nutrient-rich rivers, where the most majestic titans thrive, and climbs up mountains where shorter and smaller varieties are found. The fog-loving species hugs the coast, growing a few hundred feet from the Pacific Ocean to only around 40 miles inland. Extremely resilient beings, they have many methods to ensure their survival. Natural death can occur when a tree is uprooted by wind or flood, but even then, they have the ability to sprout through their base or trunks. The oldest known tree is at least 2510 years old, though older trees are expected to exist (core samples are difficult to obtain as many old trees are hollow). These gentle giants have lived on Earth for 240 million years, and in California for at least 20 million years. Their ancestors grew among the dinosaurs and their closest relatives are Sierra Redwood (commonly called Giant Sequoia) and Dawn Redwood.