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Sem. taxodiaceae
Sequoiadendron giganteum

Sequoiadendron giant or mammoth tree- a gigantic evergreen coniferous tree of gigantic size, which has an outward resemblance to its huge hanging branches with mammoth tusks. The tallest tree in the Nikitsky Botanical Garden.

His homeland is the Western slopes of the Sierra Nevada and warm California. And there, at home, this huge evergreen tree reaches 80-100 m height, since the sequoiadendron is a very durable breed (it can live up to 5 thousand years). In the Nikitsky Botanical Garden, the size of these giants is much more modest than in their homeland, but, nevertheless, the tallest tree in the Garden, reaching 38 meters in height, is precisely the giant sequoiadendron, planted on the territory of the Upper Park in 1885. The diameter of the trunk of this mighty tree is about 2 meters.

This monumental tree has a regular wide-pyramidal crown. Branching in young trees is very dense, in old trees the trunk is cleared of branches to a height of up to 50 m. The bark is red-brown, in deep cracks, separated by plates. The needles are rough, hard, dark green with a gray tint. Cones are small (5–8 cm), oblong-ovate. Ripens by the end of the 2nd year.

The breed is slow growing, especially in the first 10–15 years. Quite frost-resistant - tolerates short-term temperature drops to - 24–25°С. He likes loose, deep, fresh soils, but even here, in the Crimea, he feels well on calcareous soils.

The wood is soft and not as valuable as evergreen sequoia. However, it also does not burn in fire.

The dryness of the Crimean summer air "taught" the tree in especially hot years to partially shed its branches, trying to reduce the area of ​​moisture evaporation. Funnel-shaped depressions along the entire trunk are traces of such “undressing”.

Sequoiadendrons were discovered relatively recently, since the mountain slopes of the ridge were inaccessible, and only in 1850 did the English traveler Lubb find the largest trees in the world. At first, these huge trees were called "California pines" or "mammoth trees", and later they began to use the designation of the Indians: the word "sequoia" is simply the name of this tree in the language of the Indians, but one of the Indian leaders of the Iroquois tribe, the inventor of Indian writing, had the same name .

In the Nikitsky Botanical Garden - since 1858.

The ancestors of mammoth trees lived on Earth 100 million years ago. Old specimens growing in the protected groves of California are listed in the state register by the names: "Thick Tree", "Three Sisters", "Pioneer's Hut", etc. In 1881, in Yosemite Park, while laying a road, they had to make a tunnel in one sequoiadendron, through which buses pass freely.

At the end of the last century, a lightning strike split the trunk of a tree at the base and it collapsed under its own weight. The weight of this trunk is more than 1000 tons. Stump diameter 23 m was named "Father of the Forest". In 1910, a room was cut out inside the stump and a cozy restaurant was placed in it. A spiral staircase around the stump allows you to climb to the top, where in the summer a quartet plays country music, 16 couples dance freely and there is enough space for 20 spectators around the perimeter.

When I. Ilf and E. Petrov, invited to America, visited Sequoia Park (occupies the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada), they wrote: “... we were driving through an ancient gloomy forest, a fantastic forest where the word “man” ceases to sound proud, and only one word sounds proudly - "tree ...", I wanted to imagine that these trees grew peacefully when not only Columbus, but also Caesar, and Alexander the Great, and even the Egyptian king Tutankhamun were not in the world ... ".

Currently, in their homeland, in California, there are no sequoiadendron trees older than 2 thousand years. But according to scientists, they can live up to 6-7 thousand years.

(Sequoiadendron)- a genus of woody plants of the Taxodiaceae family (lat. Taxodiaceae), which, without exaggeration, can be called living fossils. This genus has only one species - sequoiadendron giant, or mammoth tree (Sequoiadendron giganteum). For the first time, sequoia forests were discovered by Europeans on the Pacific coast in 1769, and in 1853 the sequoiadendron was described by the famous English botanist D. Lindley, who gave it the name wellingtonia in honor of the English Duke of Wellington, the hero of the Battle of Waterloo. But in 1939, this genus was given the name "sequoiadendron" because the name "wellingtonia" had previously been assigned to another plant.

Softwood heartwood, the wood of which is distinguished by a light red heartwood, medium hardness and good mechanical properties. The high density makes this wood light yet strong, and the combination of oils and resins almost eliminates rot, termite attacks and other insects. It is excellent for construction work, for making fences and tiles, and the thick bark of this tree (30-60 cm) can be used as lining in fruit containers. Precisely because of the high-quality wood, since the time of the first explorers, the predatory extermination of se-voyadendrons began. Today, this endangered species is under protection, therefore, it is mainly excluded from economic use.

In nature, sequoiadendron can only be found in reserves on the western slopes of the Californian Sierra Nevada, where it grows in the Mariposa Grove forest, located 35 miles from Yosemite Valley. Sequoiadendrons grow in small separate groves (there are about 30 in total) at an altitude of 1500-2000 m above sea level. The remaining trees, and there are only about 500 of them, have been declared protected. The largest sequoiadendrons have their own names: "Father of the Forests", "General Sherman", "General Grant". One of them is the "Giant Grizzly", whose age is 2700 years. This centenarian reaches a height of 65 meters, and the diameter of its base is 9 meters. On the saw cut of another tree, an orchestra and three dozen dancers freely fit. Tunnels made in the lower parts of trunks are also known (for example, in Yosemite Park such a tunnel has existed since 1881. Cars pass freely through it.
Sequoiadendrons up to 135 m high and about 6000 years old are also known.
Sequoiadendrons, as well as their closest relatives - sequoias, are perfectly adapted to frequent forest fires. Their wood and bark are fire resistant. Black scars on the trunks of large trees testify to past fires. In addition, the reproduction of these plants depends on fires. Tiny seeds require a minimum of soil to germinate, while seedlings need full sun. Fires destroy competing trees and provide fertile ash plus direct access to the sun.

In many countries of the world, the sequoiadendron is bred as an ornamental plant. It looks especially attractive at the age of 80-100 years, when its dark green crown, which starts from the ground, has a regular pyramidal shape. Sequoiadendron also paints reddish bark, scaly needles and small single cones with flat thyroid scales arranged in a spiral. With age, the correctness of the crown is violated, the previously decorative trunk is exposed and thickened, and the tree takes on a monumental appearance.
The sequoiadendron was introduced to Europe in 1853. It perfectly took root in the gardens and parks of its southwestern part, especially in Great Britain, where the largest cultivar is located, whose height reaches 45 m.

The seeds of this giant tree came to Russia five years later. Thus, the first sequoiadendrons were planted in the Nikitsky Botanical Garden, and later they appeared on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus and in Central Asia. Despite the fact that under artificial conditions these trees grow more slowly than at home, they also reach quite impressive sizes.

FEATURES OF CULTIVATION, SOIL, LANDING RULES
Since the sequoiadendron is not widely used for landscape construction, the basic rules for caring for it have not been fully developed. Thus, if a gardener decides to purchase a sequoiadendron for landscaping his backyard, he must follow the general rules for breeding conifers. It should also be noted that sequoiadendron prefers a humid warm climate (the maximum temperature in July is 25-29 ° C).
Most of the groves, which consist of sequoiadendrons, grow on granite residual and alluvial soils. The giant tree prefers well-drained, moist sandy loams with a pH of 5.5 to 7.5. In general, with sufficient humidity of air and soil, the plant is not very demanding on the mechanical composition of the soil.
To plant a sequoiadendron, you should follow the basic rules for planting conifers. Landing pits should be prepared in advance. In heavy soils, drainage from gravel or broken bricks with a layer of 20 cm is required. Before planting, it is recommended to prepare special soil - soddy or leafy soil with the addition of sand or clay. When planting, the root neck should be at ground level. During the first two years after planting, mineral fertilizers are applied to the soil in the amount of 30-40 g/cm. If the weather is dry, hot, the plants need to be watered, sprinkling twice a month.

BREEDING
The main method of propagation is by seeds, but can also be propagated by cuttings.
Seeds are sown in spring (April, May) or without prior preparation, or they are soaked in water for 1-2 days (ground germination is 1-2%). By autumn, the seedlings have up to six shoots and reach a height of 8-10 cm, and in the second year of life it grows up to 20-30 cm.

DISEASES AND PESTS
Sequoiadendron is very resistant to diseases and pests, but in the climate of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus it is affected by root rot, and in more northern regions it grows very slowly and is damaged by frost.

LANDSCAPE DESIGN
Sequoiadendron is recommended for use in single and solitary plantings.

To the question What is a mammoth tree? given by the author Olesya the best answer is
The name of the species was due to the gigantic size and external resemblance of its huge hanging branches to mammoth tusks. This species was widespread in the northern hemisphere at the end of the Cretaceous and in the Tertiary, now only about 30 groves have survived, located on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada in California at an altitude of 1500-2000 m above sea level.
Mature trees reach a height of up to 100 meters with a trunk diameter of 10-12 m. The oldest, at the moment, Giant Sequoia has an age of 3200 years, established by annual rings.
The name of the giant sequoiadendron, described in 1853, has changed several times due to the desire to give the tree the name of one of the great people of that time. The largest sequoiadendrons have their own names: "Father of the Forests", "General Sherman", "General Grant" and others.
Sequoiadendron as an ornamental plant is bred in many countries of the world: the southwestern part of Europe, where it was introduced in the middle of the 19th century, as well as in the Southern Crimea, Central Asia, on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, in Transcarpathia.
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GIANTS
For those who see the sequoia for the first time, it seems like something that came from a fairy tale. The average diameter of a tree is two and a half meters, and sometimes up to six meters, and the height of some trees exceeds 110 meters. Such a tree would be taller than the Statue of Liberty from the base of the pedestal to the top of the torch. In the volume of the trunk, an intercity bus is freely placed. Sequoia is the largest living organism on Earth. A typical sequoia forest contains more biomass per unit area than any other area on the globe, including the Amazon rainforest.

Answer from Natushka[guru]
Sequoia dendron, or mammoth tree, can be up to 100 meters high with a trunk diameter of up to 10 m. This is hard to imagine. A tree that is taller than the tallest house! And how shocked were the Europeans who saw such a forest! It was in 1762 in the south of North America, on the Pacific coast. The tree was named Sequoia by the Austrian botanist Stefan Endlicher in honor of the outstanding leader of the American tribe of the Iroquois Sequoia. Now botanists call it sequoia dendron. This tree lives for a very long time. They call the age of both 3 and 4 thousand years. At different ages, the sequoia dendron looks different. A young tree, about a hundred years old, looks like a dark green pyramid. The translucent reddish trunk is covered with branches from the very ground to the top. Over time, the trunk becomes bare and becomes thick, and then becomes gigantic. It is known that thirty people fit freely on one stump of the Mammoth tree. And in one of the parks in America, a tunnel was pierced through its trunk, through which cars pass freely. Now there are only 500 such trees left. They are guarded, they are even given their own names, for example, "Father of the Forests", "General Grant". Its red-colored wood does not rot, and this was one of the reasons for the destruction of these trees.

Answer from VeselyVolk[guru]
Looks like a sequoia

Answer from Tatyana[guru]
Sequoiadendron giant, mammoth tree. Giant sequoiadendron, mammoth tree (Sequoiadendron giganteum (Lindl.) Bucch.) This is a gigantic coniferous evergreen tree native to North America. Once, 60 million years ago, it was widespread in the Northern Hemisphere, and now it is preserved only in a special reserve in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. The grove has only about 500 trees. This is one of the tallest and longest-lived trees on the globe. Struck by its gigantic size and the peculiar arrangement of huge arcuate hanging branches resembling mammoth tusks, the discoverers gave it the name mammoth tree.

Sequoia is a genus of evergreen coniferous trees of the Taxodiaceae family. According to one of the classification systems, the Taxodiaceae family belongs to the subclass of Conifers (Pinidae or Coniferae), which, in turn, is included in the class Conifers or Pinopsida (Pinopsida), belonging to the Gymnospermae department.

The only species of the genus - evergreen sequoia, or red (S. sempervirens) - is considered a symbol of the US state of California, it is one of the tallest and longest-lived trees on Earth, also famous for its beautiful, straight-layered and decay-resistant wood.

The height of the evergreen sequoia is about 90 m, and the record one is 113 m. It is noted in the Redwood National Park in California. The diameter of the trunk reaches 6–11 m and can increase by 2.5 cm per year. The sequoia has the most valuable wood among taxodies with a red core and pale yellow or white sapwood (sapwood is the layers of wood located between the core and the cambium). The bark of the tree is thick, reddish, deeply furrowed. The quality of wood varies not only depending on the place of growth, but also within the same trunk. The crown is narrow, starting above the lower third of the trunk. Oval buds and short shoots with a flat and bluish-gray needles give the sequoia beauty and splendor. The root system is formed by lateral roots that go deep into the soil.

The evergreen sequoia is one of the longest-lived plants on Earth: its age is more than 2000 years (the oldest known tree is about 2200 years old). Maturity occurs at 400-500 years.

The reproductive organs of sequoias (like all conifers) are strobili - modified shortened shoots bearing special leaves - sporophylls, on which spore-forming organs - sporangia are formed. There are male strobiles (they are called microstrobils) and female (megastrobils). Sequoia is a monoecious plant (microstrobils and megastrobils develop on the same tree). Microstrobili are solitary, they are placed on the tops of the shoots or in the axils of the leaves. Megastrobili are collected in small oval-shaped single cones. One of the features of the sequoia is the ability to produce abundant shoots that do not differ in growth rate and life expectancy from seedlings grown from seeds. Sequoia forests in America consist mainly of trees grown in this way.

At the end of the Cretaceous and in the Tertiary period, the evergreen sequoia, along with other representatives of taxodiaceae, was widespread in the northern hemisphere, but now the remains of forests with its participation have been preserved only in a limited area of ​​​​western North America, namely, on a narrow strip of the Pacific coast from Monterey County to northern California to the Chetco River in southern Oregon. The length of this strip is about 720 km, it is located at an altitude of 600 to 900 m above sea level. The evergreen sequoia needs a very humid climate, so it does not go further from the coast than 32-48 km, remaining in the zone of influence of humid sea air.

For the first time, sequoia forests were discovered by Europeans on the Pacific coast in 1769. By the color of the wood, the sequoia then got its name “mahogany” (Redwood), which has survived to this day. In 1847, the Austrian botanist Stefan Endlicher singled out these plants as an independent genus and gave it the name "sequoia" in honor of the Sequoia (Sequoyah, 1770-1843), an outstanding leader of the Iroquois, who invented the alphabet of the Cherokee tribe.

Because of the beautiful wood and fast growth, sequoia is specially grown in forestry. Light, dense, resistant to rotting and insect attack, sequoia wood is widely used as a building and joinery material, goes to the manufacture of furniture, sleepers, telegraph poles, railway cars, paper and tiles. Lack of smell allows it to be used in the tobacco and food industries. Boxes and boxes for cigars and tobacco, barrels for storing honey and molasses are made from it. Because of the beautiful wood and fast growth, sequoia is specially grown in forestry. Sequoia is also used as an ornamental plant, planting it for this in gardens and parks.

Two other species are close to the evergreen sequoia, each of which is also the only representative of its genus. The first species is the giant sequoiadendron or mammoth tree (Sequoiadendron giganteum); the second species is the glyptostrobus metasequoia (Metasequoia glyptostroboides).

The giant sequoiadendron or mammoth tree was named so because of the gigantic size and outward resemblance of its huge hanging branches to mammoth tusks. The evergreen sequoia and the giant sequoia are similar in appearance, but differ from each other in the shape of the leaves, the size of the cones, and a number of other features.

Like the evergreen sequoia, the giant sequoia was widespread in the northern hemisphere at the end of the Cretaceous and in the Tertiary, now only about 30 small groves have survived, located on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada in California at an altitude of 1500-2000 m above sea level.

The giant sequoiadendron was described in 1853, but after that its name changed several times. The appearance of the tree impressed the Europeans so much that they began to assign the names of the greatest people of that time to it. So, the famous English botanist D. Lindley, who first described this plant, called it wellingtonia in honor of the Englishman Duke of Wellington, the hero of the Battle of Waterloo. The Americans, in turn, proposed the name of Washington (or Washington Sequoia) in honor of the first US President D. Washington, who led the liberation movement against the British. But since the names washingtonia and wellingtonia had already been assigned to other plants, in 1939 this plant received its current name.

The giant sequoiadendron is an unusually majestic and monumental tree, reaching a height of 80-100 m with a trunk diameter of up to 10-12 m. It is distinguished by longevity and can probably live up to 3 or even 4 thousand years.

Because of the durable, rot-resistant wood, sequoiadendrons have been rapaciously exterminated in their homeland since the time of the first explorers. The remaining old trees (and there are only about 500 of them) are declared protected. The largest sequoiadendrons have their own names: "Father of the Forests", "General Sherman", "General Grant" and others. These trees are real giants of the plant world. It is known, for example, that an orchestra and three dozen dancers freely fit on the saw cut of one of them, and cars pass through the tunnels made in the lower parts of the trunks of some other trees. The weight of one of the largest of these trees - "General Sherman" - is about 2,995,796 kg.

Sequoiadendron as an ornamental plant is bred in many countries of the world, for example, it has perfectly taken root in the parks and gardens of the southwestern part of Europe, where it was introduced back in the middle of the 19th century.

Sequoiadendrons are used not only for decorative purposes. The rotting wood of the sequoiadendron is used in construction work, for the manufacture of tiles and fences. The thick bark of the tree (30–60 cm) is used as spacers in fruit containers.