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Giant Sequoia
(redirected from Giant Sequoias)

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giant sequoia: see sequoia sequoia , name for the redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) and for the big tree, or giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), both huge, coniferous evergreen trees of the bald cypress family, and for extinct related species.
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big tree

 or giant sequoia or Sierra redwood

Coniferous evergreen (Sequoiadendron giganteum; see conifer) found in scattered groves on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada range of California, U.S. The largest of all trees in bulk, the big tree is distinguished from the coastal redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) by having uniformly scalelike, or awl-shaped, leaves that lie close against the branches, scaleless winter buds, and cones requiring two seasons to mature. The pyramidal tree shape, reddish brown furrowed bark, and drooping branches are common to both genera. The largest specimen (in total bulk) is the General Sherman tree in Sequoia National Park—101.5 ft (31 m) in circumference at its base, 272.4 ft (83 m) tall, and weighing an estimated 6,167 tons (5,593 metric tons). Because big-tree lumber is more brittle than redwood lumber and thus less desirable, the big tree has been easier to preserve; though some groves have been cut, most of the 70 remaining groves are now protected by state or national forests or parks.


Giant Sequoia 

(Sequoiadendron giganteum), also big tree, a coniferous evergreen of the family Taxodiaceae. The giant sequoia reaches heights greater than 100 m and lives up to 1,500 years (according to other data, up to 3,000 or 4,000 years). The straight, well-shaped trunk measures as much as 10 m in diameter. In old trees the lower part of the trunk is branchless. The dense crown is conical and rounded. The bark is brown in mature trees and reddish in young trees. The leaves (needles) are gray-green, spirally arranged, narrowly lanceolate, and concave above. The ovate, woody cones, which develop at the tips of the lateral shoots, are 5–7.5 cm long and 3–4.5 cm wide. Initially green, they turn brown when the seeds mature. The cones mature in the second year, remaining on the tree after the seeds fall out. The seeds are flat and have a membranous wing.

The giant sequoia grows in California, at elevations of 1,450–2,500 m on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. The largest natural groves of the trees have been designated as preserves. Some of the tallest trees have been given their own names.

The sequoia tree is ornamental and has been cultivated in parks and gardens of Southern and Central Europe. In the USSR it is raised in the southern Crimea, Middle Asia, the Caucasus, and Transcarpathia.

REFERENCES

Derev’ia i kustarniki SSSR, vol. 1. Moscow-Leningrad, 1949.
Kammeyer, H. F. Mammulbäume. Ziemsen, 1960. (Die neue Brehm-Bücherei, fasc. 256.)

V. N. GLADKOVA



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That is partly because it grows in a forest of giant sequoias with a number of them indistinguishable in size by the eyeball method.
The towering giant sequoias stood their ground as 1,000 firefighters - including crews from Los Angeles County and Los Padres National Forest in Ventura County - fought to save the lofty redwoods, whose only home is in the western Sierra Nevada.
In My First Summer in the Sierra, he writes that soon after the first giant sequoias were "discovered" by whites in 1852, in California's Calaveras Grove (now Calaveras State Park), "One of the grandest trees was cut down for the sake of a stump
 
 
 
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