“Grizzly Giant”, Yosemite National Park, California photo courtesy Mike Murphy.
Giant sequoias are the world’s largest trees, they can reach a high of more than 94 m (310 ft)!
But not all are this high. The average height of a sequoia is 50-85 m (160-279 ft) and 6-8 m (20-26 ft) in diameter, with some over 17 m (56 ft) in diameter. They can live thousands of years, the oldest known giant sequoia based on ring count is 3,500 years old.
Sequoia bark is fibrous and may be 90 cm (3.0 ft) thick at the base, providing significant fire protection for the trees. The leaves are evergreen, around 3-6 mm long, and the seed cones are 4-7cm long. It takes between 18 to 20 months for a cone to mature though they typically remain green and closed for up to 20 years. Each cone can have around 230 seeds, which are dark brown, 4-5 mm long and 1 mm broad, with a 1-mm wide.
At any given time, a large tree may be expected to have about 11,000 cones. A mature giant sequoia has been estimated to disperse from 300,000-400,000 seeds per year. The winged seeds may be carried up to 180 m (600 ft) from the parent tree.
