#waterfall tree

[stinkek]

Getting up on on this tree as an earth pony was so satisfying...

[indizombie]

In the summer of 2021 fires swept through the famous sequoias in California, killing a fifth of them. One of them was the Waterfall Tree – burned to a crisp. Long thought of as indestructible, these trees have been dying in increasing numbers in recent years. "What we are seeing now is that wildfire is capable of incinerating large giant sequoias in large numbers," said Christy Brigham, chief of resource management and science for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. "The primary driver is the 100-year history of fire suppression, but it's being made worse by climate change-driven hotter drought." The disappearance of giant sequoia genetics is also a concern. "We don't know what we may have lost," said Brigham. "But we are talking about a species that has already gone through a genetic bottleneck and is only found in 78 groves. Now we have these wildfires that have burned up 19% of the adult large-tree population. In one grove, 80% of the grove is gone."

Jim Robbins, ‘The genetic power of ancient trees’, BBC

[legendarylandscapes]

Waterfall Tree by *k04sk