[HN Gopher] Redwood World - Pictures and Locations of Redwoods i...
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       Redwood World - Pictures and Locations of Redwoods in the British
       Isles
        
       Author : de_keyboard
       Score  : 107 points
       Date   : 2021-08-03 10:13 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.redwoodworld.co.uk)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.redwoodworld.co.uk)
        
       | 14 wrote:
       | This is so cool. My dad planted a giant Redwood here in Canada on
       | Vancouver Island about 24 years ago when he built his house.
       | People don't believe me when I say the circumference of the base
       | of the tree measures over 5 feet but is only that old. His house
       | is along side a river with beautiful dark, nutrient rich top soil
       | and things seem to grow well in his yard. I wish I new the best
       | way to share a photo here later once it gets light out.
        
         | ben_ wrote:
         | You can always upload a photo to imgur (https://imgur.com/) and
         | link it here
        
         | gccs wrote:
         | People over estimate how thick 5' circumference is
        
       | dougSF70 wrote:
       | This is great. My dad planted a redwood in plot of land he wanted
       | to use to grow vines. It was too step for vines so he planted
       | hundreds of trees (Chilean Beech) and a single Wellingtonia.
        
       | holoduke wrote:
       | I am always amazed that once the UK including Scotland was
       | covered in thick woodlands. The Highlands as we know it are very
       | different than the old days. You can stil find remains of trees
       | below soil in some areas
        
         | cyberpunk wrote:
         | I come from the highlands, the lack of trees is down to the
         | wind... I would plant a tree, it would grow up a bit and then
         | bam, wind would snap it and kill it...
         | 
         | I'm not convinced the wind has changed so much ;)
        
         | chippy wrote:
         | I've heard that the popular idea that the UK was covered in
         | dense forest after the ice age until modern times is mostly
         | erroneous these days. Even around 4000BC-1000BC humans were up
         | there farming and clearing quite quickly.
         | 
         | https://aeon.co/essays/who-chopped-down-britains-ancient-for...
         | 
         | "This understanding has now been shown to be wholly inaccurate.
         | Much of England had been cleared as early as 1000 BCE, some two
         | millennia beforehand. The Bronze Age saw intensive farming on a
         | scale that we are only just beginning to appreciate. As Oliver
         | Rackham puts it in The History of the Countryside:
         | "It can no longer be maintained, as used to be supposed even 20
         | years ago, that Roman Britain was a frontier province, with
         | boundless wild woods surrounding occasional precarious
         | clearings on the best land. On the contrary, even in supposedly
         | backward counties such as Essex, villa abutted on villa for
         | mile after mile, and most of the gaps were filled by small
         | towns and the lands of British farmsteads."
         | 
         | "
         | 
         | Obviously there as loads more forest than now, but 1000 years
         | ago it was about 15% forest, and now it's about 9%
         | 
         | This once popular belief or legend or myth connected to the
         | forest myths of germany and Robin Hood and the idea of a
         | primeval ancient woodland in the British deep dark past. Maybe
         | also connected to a kind of romanticism of a past wild non-
         | modern country.
        
           | hnlmorg wrote:
           | > _even in supposedly backward counties such as Essex_
           | 
           | I nearly choked on my lunch when I read that! haha
        
           | conductr wrote:
           | Having no prior indoctrination or opinion I had always just
           | assumed it would have coincided with proliferation of
           | agricultural. Whoever says the forests disappeared 1000 years
           | ago, after agriculture had been in full swing for millennia,
           | makes a weak argument without some supporting evidence.
           | 
           | Even in the US, where land clearing has only been in practice
           | for a few centuries, we've seen drastic changes to our
           | landscape. I'd love to see how things looked before American
           | chestnut trees went "extinct" and how people used them in the
           | past. Apparently it was quite the resource.
        
           | m-i-l wrote:
           | > _" popular idea that the UK was covered in dense forest
           | after the ice age until modern times is mostly erroneous
           | these days"_
           | 
           | When I was growing up in Scotland, I'm reasonably sure I was
           | told that 95% of Scotland was once covered by the Caledonian
           | Forest. Certainly that's what I've been telling people since
           | then:-) But according to
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caledonian_Forest it was
           | estimated to have covered 15,000km2, whereas Scotland is
           | 78,000km2, suggesting it was less than 20%.
        
             | cyberpunk wrote:
             | If you look around you'll notice the trees are usually only
             | growing on one side of a hill, the wind gets anything else
             | before it's strong enough to withstand it (at least on the
             | west coast where I'm from)
        
           | redis_mlc wrote:
           | > forest myths of germany and Robin Hood
           | 
           | There are dense forests in that region, including some that
           | are primeval.
           | 
           | I had the good fortune to grow up next to a national park,
           | and can speak un-ironically about tree-hugging.
           | 
           | Battle of Hurtgen Forest
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_H%C3%BCrtgen_Forest
        
         | fredley wrote:
         | I'm reading _Wilding_ by Isabella Tree that contests this view
         | of the past flora in the British Isles. The impact of megafauna
         | on the development of woodland is seemingly not accounted for
         | in the accepted view of the historic landscape.
         | 
         | While it's true that if you leave a patch of land to its own
         | devices currently, it gradually becomes scrub, then dense
         | woodland, it turns out if there are deer and other large
         | herbivores about they do quite a good job at reducing tree
         | cover and turning the landscape into a variety of other
         | ecosystems.
        
         | Zenst wrote:
         | It always irked me the lack of tree's in Scotland, but many
         | reasons for it - https://treesforlife.org.uk/into-the-
         | forest/habitats-and-eco...
        
       | mkl wrote:
       | Height leader board, maximum 52.73 metres:
       | http://www.redwoodworld.co.uk/toptrunks.htm
       | 
       | A fallen redwood sprouted into a whole row of trees:
       | http://www.redwoodworld.co.uk/picturepages/leighton.htm
        
         | phkahler wrote:
         | >> A fallen redwood sprouted into a whole row of trees
         | 
         | I had no idea they could do that. Amazing!
        
           | MuirsGhost wrote:
           | Trees are amazing!
           | 
           | > The redwood is one of the few conifers that sprout from the
           | stump and roots, and it declares itself willing to begin
           | immediately to repair the damage of the lumberman and also
           | that of the forest-burner. As soon as a redwood is cut down
           | or burned it sends up a crowd of eager, hopeful shoots,
           | which, if allowed to grow, would in a few decades attain a
           | height of a hundred feet, and the strongest of them would
           | finally become giants as great as the original tree.
           | 
           | https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1897/08/the-
           | ame...
        
           | PBnFlash wrote:
           | This is actually the primary method of reproduction. The
           | seeds are basically infertile and will be outcompeted by
           | grass.
        
             | oasisbob wrote:
             | The seeds do much better in mineral soil, out of a closed-
             | canopy climax forest. It's a matter of environment, not
             | seed fertility.
             | 
             | It's very easy to take a drive anywhere in Northern CA and
             | find plenty of places where the primary form of
             | reproduction is sexual.
        
           | dekhn wrote:
           | Where I went to college you couldn't help but step into a
           | "fairy ring" made by sprouts from a felled redwood. People
           | owuld dress them up like huts and hang out late at night with
           | candles and reading poetry.
           | 
           | https://openspacetrust.org/blog/fairy-rings/
        
           | oasisbob wrote:
           | Western redcedar, too. They have a lot in common with their
           | distant northern cousins.
        
       | scooble wrote:
       | I don't know why, but I love this and was delighted to find our
       | local redwood.
        
       | PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
       | And people say that the good internet is dead ...
       | 
       | What a great project.
        
       | CraigJPerry wrote:
       | Are these trees ever called Canadian Redwoods?
       | 
       | When i was at primary school one of the class days out was to
       | Chatelherault park - the picture on the site is still accurate -
       | i have no idea why but the redwoods have always been the defining
       | thing about the park for me ever since we were told about them
       | then.
       | 
       | I've always thought we were told they were canadian redwoods but
       | i could easily be wrong. Maybe they said giant redwoods like this
       | site.
        
         | oasisbob wrote:
         | Coast or coastal redwood is another common name, typically used
         | in its native range when differentiating with giant redwood.
         | (Sequoiadendron giganteum)
         | 
         | Perhaps that's what you're thinking of?
        
         | TinkersW wrote:
         | Probably not, as all redwoods aside from the Dawn(small thing
         | from China) are from California, perhaps you misheard
         | California as Canada.
        
           | Cerium wrote:
           | Or saw "CA" and thought country rather than state.
        
       | cronix wrote:
       | The sound of falling Redwood trees is what they used for the
       | sound of At-At's walking in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (those
       | huge 2 and 4 legged walking machines). Boom, boom, boom. The Ewok
       | scenes on forest planet "Endor" were filmed near the area of "The
       | Avenue of the Giants" (Redwood forest) in N. California.
        
       | darrenf wrote:
       | Fantastic stuff. I walk past the redwoods local to me very
       | regularly and often admire them. Last weekend my partner and I
       | visited Ramster Gardens and saw these mighty specimens:
       | http://www.redwoodworld.co.uk/picturepages/chiddingfold.htm
       | 
       | BlueSky provide a National Tree Map[0] - " _a unique,
       | comprehensive database of location, height and canopy /crown
       | extents for every single tree 3m and above in height._". From
       | their data I learned that more than 40% of the borough where I
       | live is tree cover.[1] It's hard to describe how much I enjoy
       | walking the miles and miles of public footpaths through woodland
       | there are on my doorstep.
       | 
       | [0] https://www.bluesky-world.com/ntm
       | 
       | [1] https://www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/homes-and-
       | gardens/places-...
        
       | naturalauction wrote:
       | Unfortunately my local redwood isn't on here, I guess it's time
       | to submit a picture!
        
         | dkarp wrote:
         | Submit them and Ron will add them. I've sent him a couple in
         | the past and a few weeks later they were added with credits.
         | 
         | These sort of fan pages were such a part of the old web. It's
         | great to find little pockets of it.
        
           | m-i-l wrote:
           | There's a fairly mature one near where I live in London that
           | isn't on the list either. I've submitted it.
           | 
           | Agreed that it's great to know that special interest sites
           | like this still exist.
        
       | thaumasiotes wrote:
       | I appreciate the fact that Redwood World finds it necessary to
       | include a page slamming people who believe that you can't enjoy
       | trees unless they're locally native.
       | 
       | http://www.redwoodworld.co.uk/native.htm
        
         | PMan74 wrote:
         | I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not?
         | 
         | > Perhaps the Giant Redwood is an ideal tree to re-introduce as
         | we are told that our climate is beginning to return to these
         | types of conditions.
         | 
         | One of the justifications for reintroduction of Redwoods is a
         | real gem.
        
         | ivanbakel wrote:
         | The site could do more to address the concern of meddling in
         | ecological systems that humans don't fully understand. There's
         | enough evidence in the world of the negative consequences of
         | such a hubristic attitude to nature - especially in the UK.
         | 
         | Specimen trees in public areas can be wonderful things, but the
         | idea that humans can simply aesthetically rejig the natural
         | world whenever it suits them deserves to die.
        
           | ben_w wrote:
           | "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the
           | unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to
           | himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable
           | man." - George Bernard Shaw
        
           | helloworld11 wrote:
           | Sure we can. Nature already does it endlessly. Your claim
           | presupposes idea that there's some sort of conscious natural
           | order that's ideally aligned, and that we humans only muck it
           | up with ignorance. The reality (unless ever proven otherwise)
           | is that nature's own balanced world is nothing more than the
           | transient product of constant and highly random destructive
           | processes finally settling into something stable at times.
           | Nothing we do sits outside of that and nature itself has
           | brought far more equilibrium-destroying events to bear upon
           | itself than we have.
        
       | ddoran wrote:
       | I wish the English (and others following their lead) would stop
       | using the phrase "British Isles" to include Ireland. Many Irish
       | people find it highly offensive; at best it is simply inaccurate.
       | 
       | "In Ireland, the term "British Isles" is controversial, and there
       | are objections to its usage. The Government of Ireland does not
       | officially recognize the term, and its embassy in London
       | discourages its use. Britain and Ireland is used as an
       | alternative description" [1]
       | 
       | Ireland has not been a British Isle in more than a hundred years
       | when 84% of the island re-gained its independence.
       | 
       | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles
        
         | mutatio wrote:
         | Why would I stop using it, it merely describes the group of
         | islands. Geographic ignorance or a chip on your shoulder aren't
         | great motivators for me to stop. Sums up the state of affairs
         | when a perma-offended post like this is the top comment of a
         | really interesting post.
        
         | pacaro wrote:
         | Names are funny things, the name in question has been used for
         | the entire archipelago, in one form or another, for thousands
         | of years. Maybe part of the problem is the casual use of
         | Britain to mean "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and
         | Northern Ireland", it doesn't help that most people who live in
         | Great Britain don't realize that the "Great" just refers to it
         | being the largest island in the archipelago.
         | 
         | Personally I think that the UK should be separated back into
         | England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Berwick-upon-
         | Tweed. They can then individually decide whether to beg to be
         | allowed back into the EU. The Windsor nee Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
         | clan should become private citizens like anyone else (if any
         | country will have them)
         | 
         | On a more serious note, I feel that a lot of problems would be
         | resolved by dividing much of Europe into smaller polities
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | conanite wrote:
           | I suspect the "great" Britain distinguishes it from the other
           | Britain which is a nearby French province, ie "Grande
           | Bretagne" vs "Bretagne". Ireland is still not British! The
           | "British Isles" was a useful term for a dominant power while
           | it lasted.
        
             | pacaro wrote:
             | No. It was simply the descriptor applied to the largest
             | island in the archipelago. The cultural layer followed,
             | sadly England in particular and the UK in general have done
             | little or nothing to address colonial and imperial legacy
        
               | mutatio wrote:
               | No he's right, it has been used historically to
               | distinguish it from Brittany. What on earth are you
               | talking about regarding imperial legacy? It might be used
               | in a sense to project national potency, but the naming
               | never derived from any imperial motive. It seems to me
               | along with your earlier comment, that you're fixated on
               | self flagellation and a conclusion that just doesn't
               | exist regarding the naming.
        
               | pacaro wrote:
               | From the same Wikipedia article
               | 
               | "Claudius Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great
               | Britain (megale Brettania megale Brettania) and to
               | Ireland as little Britain (mikra Brettania mikra
               | Brettania) in his work Almagest (147-148 AD)"
               | 
               | I feel that the reference to English and UK colonial and
               | imperial legacy is more a recognition that the term has
               | in the present day become controversial, and, to some,
               | offensive for a number of reasons which include: a
               | history of oppression and/dominance, both within the
               | archipelago and beyond; a jingoistic element within the
               | UK population that considers that to be a good thing; the
               | conflation of the various meanings of _great_
               | 
               | Those things are distinct from where the name came from
               | [?]2,000 years ago, but speak directly to why it might be
               | offensive today
        
         | dboreham wrote:
         | As a Scot I get your point, although to be honest I don't
         | recall much need to refer to "British Isles". Wikipedia
         | suggests "Britain and Ireland" or "Atlantic Archipelago" as
         | alternatives.
         | 
         | In the US, where I live now, we have "North America" to refer
         | to Canada, USA, Mexico. Makes me wonder if Canadians are
         | offended by that..
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles
        
         | wheybags wrote:
         | Also, they're missing the one in the botanic gardens in Dublin,
         | the only one I know of :p "British Isles" doesn't bother me, I
         | guess it is a bit confusing for people who don't really know
         | what it means though.
        
         | werds wrote:
         | The problem is that nobody has come up with a snappy enough
         | alternative yet. The Good Friday Agreement uses "these
         | islands", I think people find "Britain and Ireland" to be too
         | long winded, what does that leave us with?
         | 
         | Edit: Actually "Anglo-Celtic Isles" works i suppose
        
           | pacaro wrote:
           | Some academics apparently use "Atlantic Archipelago"
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | peanut_worm wrote:
       | Apparently a lot of these were brought over during the victorian
       | period from America, so they're the same species as the redwoods
       | in california.
        
         | calibas wrote:
         | Two species from California (Sequoiadendron giganteum & Sequoia
         | sempervirens), one from China (Metasequoia glyptostroboides).
        
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       (page generated 2021-08-05 23:02 UTC)