[HN Gopher] Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the ...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the UK landscape
        
       Author : pseudolus
       Score  : 128 points
       Date   : 2024-03-13 10:31 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (phys.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
        
       | hbossy wrote:
       | >The tallest tree they found measured about 180 feet tall (54.87
       | meters)--giant compared with most native UK species, but dwarfed
       | by their American counterparts. I wonder if that have anything to
       | do with communicating vessels effect. The really big ones grow in
       | the mountains, so I imagine it's easier to pump water that high
       | if trees roots can "climb" the slope next to trunk.
        
         | Angostura wrote:
         | Well, the oldest Sequoia in the UK are 160 years old. The
         | article says they keep up their rapid growth throughout their
         | potential lifespan of 3,000 years - so they are babies.
        
           | coffeebeqn wrote:
           | General Sherman is 2200 years old for example. Which is
           | pretty incredible
        
         | timdiggerm wrote:
         | Give them time; they're young trees yet.
        
         | s1artibartfast wrote:
         | This isnt really a factor. The slope may change ground level a
         | few feet actross the roots, but even then it would reduce
         | height on the uphill side and increase it on the downhill side
        
       | pvaldes wrote:
       | "[Each Sequoiadendron tree] can potentially pull an average of 85
       | kilograms of carbon out of the atmosphere per year".
       | 
       | I will try to remind this phrase, specially the per year part.
        
         | Fricken wrote:
         | Average Per capita annual emissions for UK residents is 5.22
         | metric tons, according to Google.
        
           | nvdk wrote:
           | So about 65 trees needed per resident, that might still be
           | doable? edit: nope, of course being a large tree it also
           | needs a lot of land.
        
             | sequoiamwah wrote:
             | 65?
        
               | nvdk wrote:
               | fixed, ty!
        
             | pvaldes wrote:
             | Like public parks maybe?
        
         | pjc50 wrote:
         | Or about one air passenger trip to Europe.
         | 
         | ("just plant trees" is not a viable solution to climate change
         | unless you can plant a _very large_ number of trees which live
         | to maturity)
        
           | enriquto wrote:
           | > unless you can plant a very large number of trees which
           | live to maturity
           | 
           | and what, then? When plants die, their matter is decomposed
           | by fungi and all their carbon is released back into the
           | atmosphere (unless the dead plant matter is buried).
           | 
           | The act of planting trees, in itself, is carbon neutral. Not
           | good, not bad, just irrelevant to the presence of carbon: the
           | carbon is still in the cycle of life within the biosphere.
           | 
           | To reverse the burning of fossil fuels, all that new carbon
           | that we introduced into the biosphere needs to be buried back
           | to where it came from. For example, by _cutting_ trees and
           | burying their wood in sealed mines several kilometers
           | underground.
        
             | medstrom wrote:
             | I suppose we could do that too, down the line, if we plant
             | trees now.
             | 
             | It's at least a method of buying time, but maybe not so
             | reliable. It presumes no one will find a way to cut them
             | down for profit later. So maybe we'd need to add each tree
             | planted to a growing count of trees "never to be cut" in
             | the country.
        
             | blincoln wrote:
             | > The act of planting trees, in itself, is carbon neutral.
             | Not good, not bad, just irrelevant to the presence of
             | carbon: the carbon is still in the cycle of life within the
             | biosphere.
             | 
             | Isn't this a little like saying that humans in a confined
             | space don't actually use up any of the oxygen, because it's
             | still technically present in the CO2 they exhale?
             | 
             | > For example, by cutting trees and burying their wood in
             | sealed mines several kilometers underground.
             | 
             | What would be the net benefit of treating it like
             | radioactive waste versus using it as a construction
             | material? Yes, a small percentage of the carbon would
             | escape, but most of it would stay locked up in the wood,
             | and one wouldn't create the massive amounts of CO2
             | necessary to build and operate those hypothetical mines.
        
               | bcatanzaro wrote:
               | Generally I agree but Sequoiadendron wood is famously
               | unsuitable for construction. It's brittle and shatters
               | easily.
               | 
               | Not the same as Sequoia wood, which is famously wonderful
               | for construction!
        
               | enriquto wrote:
               | > What would be the net benefit of treating it like
               | radioactive waste versus using it as a construction
               | material?
               | 
               | Man, that was just a silly example to illustrate the
               | absurdity of the situation. We are currently unearthing
               | millions of years worth of sequestered carbon per year
               | and dumping it all into the atmosphere. Talking about
               | planting trees is ridiculous at this point. Like pumping
               | water out of the sinking titanic with a champagne glass.
               | If we don't want to increase the amount of carbon in the
               | atmosphere we just need to stop putting it in!
        
               | BlueTemplar wrote:
               | You seem to be assuming that the carbon will stay locked
               | in the construction materials. But I doubt that it will,
               | what will happen to it after the building is destroyed ?
               | Either it will have been by fire, or as waste, will
               | likely be back in the atmosphere after wood-eating life
               | is done with it.
               | 
               | I wonder how feasible it would be to put wood (from
               | particularly dense species ?) on the bottom of the
               | expanding anoxic ocean zones ? That seems to be one of
               | the rare locations where the only thing that could
               | possibly degrade it are sulphur-"breathing" bacteria,
               | which seem to have trouble digesting lignin ?
               | 
               | But even here, it might still be easier to just stop
               | burning fossil fuels ? EDIT : ninjaed
               | 
               | P.S.: For an opposite example, see how concrete reabsorbs
               | over decades back up to half of the CO2 exhaled during
               | its production.
               | 
               | P.P.S.: Supposedly, soil-buried charcoal is also decently
               | stable, I guess even fungi find it unpalatable ??
        
             | HPsquared wrote:
             | All the work involved in felling, cutting and manually
             | sequestering the wood sounds like it could be more
             | expensive - and a lot slower and less scalable - than
             | direct air capture. (Which is already uneconomical)
        
             | omnibrain wrote:
             | > and what, then? When plants die, their matter is
             | decomposed by fungi and all their carbon is released back
             | into the atmosphere (unless the dead plant matter is
             | buried).
             | 
             | Why does every measure have to solve the problem? Buying
             | time is just as important. We start mammoth groves now. Buy
             | time for measures that solve the problem and win huge
             | ressources (building wood, recreational space, erosion
             | prevention) for the future.
        
               | mapt wrote:
               | It's not "Mammoth groves" if you want to meaningfully
               | "buy time". A grove is an open tree stand a few acres
               | wide. That's not what we're talking about. It's not
               | adding a little bit of tree seed to unused spaces. It's
               | inverting our footprint entirely.
               | 
               | It's planting the entirety of the UK, every year,
               | indefinitely. It's employing a few million people with
               | heavy machinery to walk from one side of the planet to
               | the other and bulldoze every farmhouse they find, leaving
               | behind mixed saplings at a wide spacing in the fields.
               | 
               | It's just way easier to decarbonize most of our society
               | than it is to spend the land on forest carbon fixation.
               | It's a lot of land, more land than we'd ever agree to
               | dedicate.
               | 
               | And I would point out that planting trees and then
               | sequestering that carbon periodically with charcoal
               | production is by far the easiest way. Every other
               | technique is ten or a hundred or a thousand times lower
               | payoff.
               | 
               | If you want to slow things down, you have to mostly stop
               | burning fossil fuels. We need to tax the hell out of
               | them, we need to shut down new projects, we need to
               | electrify anything feasible, we need to heavily subsidize
               | and aggressively plan for rapidly scaling renewables.
               | When we're at a 90% reduction in fossil fuel usage, then
               | we can re-assess priorities because we've both "bought
               | some time" and eliminated all the low-hanging fruit
               | that's easier than deliberate carbon fixation projects.
               | 
               | More likely, we'll keep on steamrolling ahead, and
               | something like sulfur geoengineering will be put forward
               | as a way to stave off the worst effects for a while.
        
           | vaylian wrote:
           | And you need to make sure that the wood doesn't have a chance
           | to decompose after the tree dies.
        
             | pvaldes wrote:
             | We will left that task for people living 800 years on the
             | future.
        
           | pvaldes wrote:
           | > unless you can plant a very large number of trees which
           | live to maturity
           | 
           | And this is technologically a big problem because...? Dig a
           | hole and put a seed and pay somebody to watch it for several
           | years is too difficult when our societies are at stake?
           | 
           | Because some people can't avoid to satisfy their chomp-burn-
           | boycott-my-own-future rash?... No problem. This people needs
           | mental help, and society can provide it. Keep them far away
           | from nature.
           | 
           | Ecological systems don't show linear responses. Tiny
           | increases or decreases in a variable can trigger huge
           | changes. Even a partial improvement counts. In the worst case
           | could give us a lot of extra time to have a second chance to
           | try.
           | 
           | Planting trees will not mean that we will survive, just that
           | our chances to survive will increase. It still seems a
           | valuable goal.
        
           | badcppdev wrote:
           | One passenger trip to Europe from where? It's the internet.
           | No one knows where you live!
        
       | science4sail wrote:
       | > We found that UK redwoods are well adapted to the UK and able
       | to capture a large amount of carbon dioxide.
       | 
       | Are the UK's giant sequoias predominately naturally-grown or
       | human-planted? If the trees successfully adapt their reproduction
       | cycle to the UK, then I imagine that they could become a new
       | invasive (albeit easy-to-cull) species.
        
         | Sybs wrote:
         | They are all planted by people, they cannot reproduce in the UK
         | because they need wildfires and more sun.
        
       | DrBazza wrote:
       | BBC version of same article - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-
       | environment-68518623
       | 
       | > An estimated 500,000 trees are in the UK compared to 80,000 in
       | California.
       | 
       | > To assess how these towering giants are adapting to their UK
       | home, scientists selected a sample of nearly 5,000 trees to study
       | at Wakehurst, Benmore Botanic Garden in Argyllshire, Scotland and
       | Havering Country Park in Essex.
       | 
       | > However, while the trees are doing well in the UK, there's
       | little chance of them taking over our native forests any time
       | soon - they're not reproducing here as they need very specific
       | conditions to take seed.
       | 
       | I'm curious about the final statement - the article goes to great
       | lengths to emphasize the similarity in conditions, so I wonder
       | what would be missing that would prevent sequoias from
       | reproducing. And to quote a phrase 'life, uh, finds a way'.
        
         | pjc50 wrote:
         | Interesting. I've seen the ones at Wakehurst, a lot were lost
         | during the 1987 hurricane.
         | 
         | I wouldn't worry about rogue trees, pretty much all UK forest
         | is to some extent "curated", even the historic old growth
         | places. And they're not exactly hard to see.
        
         | dbingham wrote:
         | They require wild fires to reproduce:
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum
        
         | lukan wrote:
         | "the seeds only being able to grow successfully in full sun and
         | in mineral-rich soils, free from competing vegetation. Although
         | the seeds can germinate in moist needle humus in the spring,
         | these seedlings will die as the duff dries in the summer. They
         | therefore require periodic wildfire to clear competing
         | vegetation and soil humus before successful regeneration can
         | occur" (Wikipedia)
         | 
         | They need fire and sun. (And maybe also cold winters). Britain
         | does not have that.
        
           | lenerdenator wrote:
           | me m8 dave can provide the fire so long as the old bill
           | doesn't find out about it (lad's on magistrate's orders to
           | not have matches)
        
             | __turbobrew__ wrote:
             | OI wherz ur matches loicense!?
        
             | pvaldes wrote:
             | > these seedlings will die as the duff dries in the summer
             | 
             | Again the myth of Prometheus, "they need fire, burn, burn,
             | burn"... Yawn.
             | 
             | may die --On California-- UK is a little more humid.
             | 
             | Sequoiadendron grows happy in most temperate areas,
             | including most of Spain. Segovia has some of the tallest
             | trees out of USA, and is a hot place on summer. We have
             | also a few small Sequioadendron forests on the North of
             | Spain since 1950 or even in Granada since 1870. Some
             | Sequioa sempervirens live even in Jaen
             | 
             | (and they don't need fire at all, because gardeners do all
             | the work of taking care for the saplings).
        
               | indoordin0saur wrote:
               | Side note, but the Sugi tree of Japan is perhaps the most
               | similar tree to the Sequoia in terms of appearance.
        
               | acchow wrote:
               | Do these redwoods in Spain also reproduce naturally?
        
           | Chris2048 wrote:
           | perhaps the seedlings can be cultivated manually then, until
           | they can survive without intervention - then they should last
           | a long time.
        
             | rob74 wrote:
             | Well yeah, I mean that's nothing new - it's called a tree
             | nursery. But, as the BBC article states, the chances of
             | them reproducing _in the wild_ are slim...
        
               | darkr wrote:
               | If we've learned anything from Jurassic Park, it's that
               | life...finds a way
        
             | xeromal wrote:
             | I think that's the point of this post. They're manually
             | cared for until they survive but they don't have to worry
             | about them reproducing. Kind of a nice feature!
        
         | mytailorisrich wrote:
         | The Wikipedia page says that in the wild they usually require
         | wildfires to clear the land and allow the sequoias' seeds to
         | germinates, and the seeds are also fussy:
         | 
         | " _Although the seeds can germinate in moist needle humus in
         | the spring, these seedlings will die as the duff dries in the
         | summer. They therefore require periodic wildfire to clear
         | competing vegetation and soil humus before successful
         | regeneration can occur. Without fire, shade-loving species will
         | crowd out young sequoia seedlings, and sequoia seeds will not
         | germinate_ ". [1]
         | 
         | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum
        
         | mc32 wrote:
         | I hate when they do apples and oranges comparisons; it renders
         | it almost useless:
         | 
         | "There are an estimated half a million redwoods in the UK...
         | fewer than 80,000 giant sequoias remaining in their native
         | California range."
         | 
         | generic redwoods in UK 500,000, specific giant sequoias in
         | Calif 80,000. It does not say how many specific giant sequoias
         | there are in the UK.
        
           | bcatanzaro wrote:
           | It also doesn't say how many giant sequoias are in CA. They
           | do grow when planted in CA as well outside their native
           | range. The native giant sequoias live on a tiny fraction of
           | CA's area, maybe 1%.
        
         | throw310822 wrote:
         | Also, does this mean that all the 500k trees have been planted?
        
           | tokai wrote:
           | 3128 hectares were planted with trees in UK just last year.
           | Remember that trees are a crop, and most forests in Europe
           | are plantations.
           | 
           | https://forestrycommission.blog.gov.uk/2023/06/16/england-
           | tr...
        
             | rob74 wrote:
             | Trees are a crop, but the very slow growing sequoias are
             | more of a status symbol (as the article also mentions). And
             | not only in the UK, many parks, botanical gardens etc. all
             | over Europe just _have_ to have at least one sequoia...
        
               | s1artibartfast wrote:
               | but the number quoted for the UK includes the costal
               | redwood, which IS one of the most popular farmed woods.
        
         | indoordin0saur wrote:
         | There have to be more than 80k in the US. Maybe they're just
         | counting mature large trees? The groves are full of saplings
         | and "teenagers".
        
       | m-i-l wrote:
       | There are pictures and locations of many at
       | https://www.redwoodworld.co.uk/ . See also HN discussion of
       | redwoodworld.co.uk at
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28047458 . (Not affiliated,
       | but I did submit details of my local sequoias).
        
         | julian_t wrote:
         | It's missing my local one here in Surrey, where someone has one
         | growing in their rather small front garden. Such a huge tree in
         | such a small space - I wonder which one came first. Anyway,
         | thanks for making me aware of this, I'll go and add it.
        
         | yitchelle wrote:
         | I noticed that redwoodworld.co.uk had saplings for sale. Very
         | intriguing.
        
           | Lio wrote:
           | Yes I agree.
           | 
           | I love Giant Sequoias and have fantasised many times about
           | purchasing a sapling to guerilla plant in my local woods.
           | I've never quite found the perfect spot to do it though.
        
           | secondcoming wrote:
           | If you'd like more of a challenge, I bought seeds from here:
           | https://superlativetrees.com/
        
       | secondcoming wrote:
       | I purchased some Giant Sequoia seeds last year and only
       | germinated them this year. Only two survived but I've no idea if
       | they're doing well. If they do survive my plan is to plant them
       | somewhere in the Scottish highlands.
       | 
       | I also have some Coastal Redwood and Dawn Redwood seeds but none
       | of those germinated. I think I kept them in storage for too long.
       | I might give them another shot.
        
         | mytailorisrich wrote:
         | I read about guerilla gardening recently and childishly thought
         | it would be funny to plant Giant Sequoia saplings here and
         | there.
        
         | indoordin0saur wrote:
         | Dawn Redwoods prefer hot humid summers and cold winters, like
         | you'd see in NE Asia or the East Coast of the US.
        
       | treprinum wrote:
       | Now re-forest the whole Scottish Highlands please...
        
         | pvaldes wrote:
         | Even better
        
         | throwway120385 wrote:
         | The haggis requires very specific ecological conditions for its
         | eggs to mature.
        
           | jjgreen wrote:
           | So adorable when they hatch ...
        
         | arethuza wrote:
         | That's the goal of Trees For Life: https://treesforlife.org.uk/
        
         | pjc50 wrote:
         | Somewhat disputed as to whether this is a good idea, but
         | there's definitely plans to expand non-plantation "natural"
         | forest for the ecosystem benefits. Main problem is the deer.
        
         | smcl wrote:
         | This is something that's a slow and steady ongoing process -
         | increasing from 5% to 17% cover between the years ~1900-2000
         | with the aim being 21% coverage by 2032[0]. I don't know what
         | is the "right" rate of afforestation is, whether it's going too
         | slowly or whatever, but it's not something that's completely
         | abandoned.
         | 
         | [0] - https://www.nature.scot/professional-advice/land-and-sea-
         | man...
        
       | openrisk wrote:
       | The introduction of non-native tree species is not without its
       | own controversies as these may support very different
       | biodiversity landscapes.
       | 
       | In central Europe there is, e.g., a debate about the role and
       | future of the Douglas fir, which was also introduced from North
       | America centuries ago:
       | 
       | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2022.84458...
        
         | indoordin0saur wrote:
         | I remember walking around Switzerland a few summers ago and was
         | surprised to see that most of the tallest trees in the towns
         | and parks were non-native American trees.
        
       | nuc1e0n wrote:
       | Is the timber they produce good quality for building with? I
       | might like to invest in sequoia farms for carbon capture credits
       | then timber later on.
        
         | simonsarris wrote:
         | The wood is somewhat brittle. When they felled lots of them in
         | the US 100 years ago, the loggers found to their great
         | disappointment little use for the resulting wood, and turned
         | most of the giant trees into... matchsticks, and that sort of
         | scrap thing.
         | 
         | Possibly the trees can be harvested more delicately today,
         | though.
        
           | bcrosby95 wrote:
           | They cut down trees that were 10+ feet wide to make
           | matchsticks? That makes the whole affair even more
           | disappointing.
        
           | api_or_ipa wrote:
           | Fiddlesticks.
           | 
           | Redwoods are a fabulous building material. If you're in the
           | Bay Area, go check your houses joists. Quite a number of old
           | houses here are made of redwood. AFAIK it makes a great wood
           | for joists and structures because it it's resistant to pests.
           | My nearly 100 year old house's joists are in fantastic
           | condition. Big, beautiful beams, nearly completely clear and
           | free from knots.
           | 
           | The reason it's rarely used today is because we've cut down
           | all the good trees and it's wildly uneconomical to grow
           | compared to cheaper woods.
        
             | bink wrote:
             | I even lived in a house with a redwood frame in Hawaii. It
             | was great for resisting termites.
        
             | whoopdedo wrote:
             | > Fiddlesticks
             | 
             | After some brief research, it seems that most any wood can
             | be used, so it's possible there were redwood bows made
             | sometime. The preferred wood is pernambuco. (From the
             | Brazilian paubrasilia echinata tree, now an endangered
             | species so difficult to get new sticks from.) Other popular
             | types are snakewood, sandalwood (cheap), and brazilwood
             | (cheaper). But lately the trend is to use carbon fiber
             | which has become less expensive than wooden bows of the
             | same quality.
        
             | indoordin0saur wrote:
             | Coast redwoods have useful timber but Sequoias do not.
        
         | boringg wrote:
         | Its a beautiful but quite soft wood.
        
         | Balgair wrote:
         | I'm not a carpenter, but my old house was built out of redwood.
         | 
         | Never had a problem with it and redwood keeps most of the pests
         | and bugs out. I think that's due to all the tannin in the wood.
        
           | dhosek wrote:
           | The question is which redwood. I think the lumber redwood are
           | the coastal redwoods and not the giant sequoias.
        
             | indoordin0saur wrote:
             | You are correct. The former are excellent quality timber,
             | the latter are quite poor.
        
               | Balgair wrote:
               | Yep, most likely coastal ones for my former house. The
               | house was built in the 40s, I know they were doing a lot
               | of logging up the coast back then about that time.
        
         | digging wrote:
         | Would you wait until they're mature? Good to have a multi-
         | millennium business plan.
        
       | SubiculumCode wrote:
       | I once took a biology class from a guy who researched giant
       | sequoias. Giant sequoia cones are serotinous, which means that
       | fire on the forest floor causes them to dry out, which opens and
       | releases their seeds. Without fire, the seed won't reach the
       | earth.
        
       | daveslash wrote:
       | _" There are an estimated half a million -->redwoods<-- in the UK
       | and more are being planted, partly due to their public appeal. In
       | the wild, they are endangered with fewer than 80,000 -->giant
       | sequoias<-- remaining in their native California range."_ (arrows
       | mine)
       | 
       | Giant Sequoias ( _Sequoiadendron giganteum_ ) and Coast Redwoods
       | ( _Sequoia sempervirens_ ) are two different trees!
       | 
       | Note: It seems that my California nomenclature uses "Redwood" to
       | refer _specifically_ to Coast Redwoods, whereas other regions use
       | "Redwood" to refer to all 3 species of Sequoioideae (Coast
       | Redwood, Giant Sequoia, and Dawn Redwoods"). Also, funnily
       | enough, Coast Redwoods are of the genius _" Sequoia"_, whereas
       | Giant Sequoia are of the genus _" Sequoiadendron"_
       | 
       | I've long been aware of a thriving population of S. Sempervirens
       | (Coast Redwoods)[1] and a non-zero population of S. Giganteum,
       | but such a thriving population of S. Giganteum is new to me.
       | 
       | The article focuses specifically on S. giganteum, but the
       | references to "redwoods" throw me off.... I'm sure it's accurate,
       | but I'm going to have to read the source paper.
       | 
       | For those in Southern California, there's a grove of Giant
       | Sequoia's on Mount San Jacinto that were planted in the 70's by
       | the Forest Service. [2]
       | 
       | [1] https://www.redwoodworld.co.uk/locations.htm
       | 
       | [2] https://gizmodo.com/these-sequoia-trees-are-
       | thriving-175-mil...
        
         | pvaldes wrote:
         | > Coast Redwoods are of the genius "Seqoia",
         | 
         | on the genus _Sequoia_
        
           | daveslash wrote:
           | Typo on my part. Fixed. Thank you. Take my upvote.
        
         | ndonnellan wrote:
         | Portland, OR (NW Oregon in general) also has a lot of planted
         | Giant Sequoias! So it may not be strictly true that they are
         | super picky. I imagine as climate warms, the PNW will become a
         | better spot for Sequoias. Unfortunately at the cost of trees
         | that like it cooler and wetter e.g. Western Red Cedars.
         | 
         | I would plant one, but their trunks get huge quickly, and I see
         | a lot of busted sidewalks around here due to that.
         | 
         | https://www.portland.gov/trees/sequoiadendron-giganteum
        
           | zwieback wrote:
           | Yeah, we have a lot of both in Corvallis, neither are great
           | city trees but look great in parks etc. My neighbor across
           | the street has a Sequoia and the electric company is
           | constantly chopping out massive sections to keep the power
           | lines safe.
           | 
           | Redwoods look nicer, in my opinion, but have a bad habit of
           | sprouting like crazy at the base.
        
           | hinkley wrote:
           | Western Red Cedar is remarkably polite about foundations and
           | sidewalks for such a massive tree.
           | 
           | Even black walnut is more of a "fuck this sidewalk, and fuck
           | you too" kind of tree.
           | 
           | Current owner of a fucked sidewalk, former owner of a WRC
           | planted way too close to a house.
        
         | wffurr wrote:
         | My kids and I watched a cute short show on Nat Geo titled Giant
         | Sequoias vs Coastal Redwoods that goes into this exact
         | distinction: https://youtu.be/Hmhb2vmEnvA?feature=shared
        
         | plopz wrote:
         | The story of the dawn redwoods is pretty interesting. Found in
         | the fossil record, thought to be extinct, but then in the 40s a
         | grove was found in china and seeds shipped all over the place.
         | Now theres a bunch of cities planting them along sidewalks
         | including nyc. Although sadly now it seems like the grove in
         | china is having issues.
        
           | indoordin0saur wrote:
           | Yeah, they're great trees on the east coast because they
           | provide shade in the summer but drop their leaves in the
           | winter when shaded dark streets are less desirable.
        
         | russdill wrote:
         | Also in the LA area is a great grove of coastal redwoods:
         | https://www.outdoorproject.com/united-states/california/redw...
        
       | dhosek wrote:
       | I remember going to Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Park back in
       | the '00s and when we got to the altitude where the sequoia groves
       | existed and I caught a glance of one off to the side, I was so
       | transfixed by how amazing it looked I almost drove off the road.
        
       | bilsbie wrote:
       | Invasive species?
        
       | indoordin0saur wrote:
       | Related question I've always had: does anyone know why trees on
       | the west coast of the US and Canada grow so tall? You'll find the
       | tallest species of fir (douglas fir _or_ if you 're being
       | pedantic the grand fir), pine (sugar pine), hemlock (western
       | hemlock) and cedar (western red cedar) as well as the redwood
       | species. Other places with similar climate grow tall trees but
       | nearly so high. Is it something about the climate or are forests
       | here just full of highly evolved specimens involved in an arms
       | race?
        
         | OkayPhysicist wrote:
         | There's a couple factors.
         | 
         | A big one is that the North American Pacific coast was just one
         | the last places to get significant settlement, so we didn't cut
         | down all the big trees like we did elsewhere. Appalachia, for
         | instance, used to have its share of giant trees. But those
         | trees are still dwarfed by the sequoias.
         | 
         | The West Coast's wet-dry spells lead to more forest fires,
         | presenting another evolutionary pressure on tree height. Tall
         | trees put their canopies far enough away from the flames that
         | fires can sweep through the undergrowth without ever reaching
         | them.
         | 
         | There's also the fact that we have one of the most mild
         | climates in the world: wild temperature fluctuations cause
         | difficulties in getting water up tall trunks.
         | 
         | Finally, there's the fog that keeps the canopies moist.
        
       | physicsguy wrote:
       | At Chatsworth House not far from where I live there's a 'pinetum'
       | (which was a word I'd never heard before) which has quite a few
       | redwoods planted in Victorian times.
        
       | cushpush wrote:
       | Having done a research report on redwoods years ago during summer
       | language school, I learned that giant trees once covered all of
       | North America and Europe.
        
       | jimnotgym wrote:
       | On the subject of giant imported trees liking the UK, the tallest
       | trees in the UK are a group of Douglas Firs in Wales, near Betws-
       | Y-Coed
       | 
       | https://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/heightrecords/gbr/
       | 
       | I don't recall being in Betws when it wasn't raining, if that
       | helps explain it.
        
         | axxl wrote:
         | Funnily enough my one trip there was absolutely gorgeous
         | weather with no rain.
        
           | jimnotgym wrote:
           | It is a very pretty area, well worth a trip. You can watch
           | salmon jump if you time your trip well
        
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