What plant is called the giant mammoth tree. Sequoia evergreen (mammoth tree). Where does sequoia grow?

Probably very tall and with a very thick trunk, if that’s what it’s called, many of us will decide. Few Russian residents have seen it. After all, it grows far overseas, in Central America.

Indeed, the sequoia dendron, or mammoth tree, can be up to 100 meters high with a trunk diameter of up to 10 m. This is difficult to imagine. A tree that is taller than the tallest house! And how shocked the Europeans were when they saw such a forest! It was in 1762 in the south North America, on the coast Pacific Ocean.

The tree was named sequoia by the Austrian botanist Stefan Endlicher in honor of the outstanding leader of the American Iroquois tribe Sequoia. Now botanists call it sequoia dendron.

This tree lives for a very long time. They say the age is both 3 and 4 thousand years. IN at different ages Sequoia dendron looks different. 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 exposed and thick, and then becomes gigantic.

It is known that thirty people can easily fit on one stump of the Mammoth tree. And in one of the parks in America, a tunnel has been punched through its trunk, through which cars can freely pass.

Now there are only 500 of these trees left. They are protected, they are even given their own names, for example “Father of the Forests”, “General Grant”. Its red wood does not rot, and this was one of the reasons for the destruction of these trees.

Sequoia evergreen is a relative of Sequoia dendron, but is slightly smaller in size. Its wood is highly prized. It is also red and does not rot. Mahogany furniture is redwood furniture.

Sequoia grows very quickly, and forests of these beautiful trees are grown in America.

Sequoia dendron giant and sequoia evergreen differ from each other in the shape of their leaves and the size of their cones. Sequoia has narrow leaves and from a distance it seems like there are needles on the branches. Its branch is fluffier than that of the Mammoth tree, whose leaves are more like scales.

Evergreen sequoias have taken root on the shores of the Black Sea, in the Crimea and in the Caucasus.

In the autumn of 1912, near the village of Rhynie in Scotland, the country doctor W. Mackey, who also studied geology for his own pleasure, made a cut in the rock and suddenly saw perfectly preserved plant remains. On a bare, thin stem sat somewhat elongated balls with thick walls. As it turned out later, it was the oldest plant on Earth. It lived around...

There are seeds that germinate easily and quickly, such as maple, cereal, sunflower, lettuce, and weeds. But in almost all flowering plants the seeds are not able to germinate immediately. In order for them to sprout, they need to be placed in special conditions. Legumes and plants from arid areas simply need to be wetted before sowing, as they have a hard skin, and put...

In winter, larch looks like a dried spruce: bare branches, without needles, grayish bark covered with cracks. In spring, the branches of the tree are covered with green needles. Having touched them, you are surprised - they are soft, tender, not prickly at all. They turn golden yellow in the fall and fall off in the winter. This is the advantage of larch over other conifers. After all, perennial needles become polluted, which makes it difficult for the plant to breathe and...

The bright yellow flowers of St. John's wort open in midsummer. It grows in damp places in meadows and swamps, and even just in shallow water near river banks, and in sand, and on rocky areas, and in bushes, and near roads. It can be found high in the mountains, on alpine meadows. Bright flowers, but devoid of nectar...

Mosses and bryophytes are a special department plant kingdom. These are higher plants, but they do not have roots, and we can only talk about leaves and stems conditionally. Most big class mosses are local-stem. They grow everywhere - from the Arctic to the Antarctic. The stems of these mosses are covered with leafy outgrowths various shapes. The leaf is sometimes wrapped and accumulates in this microscopic cavity...

Prickly raspberry bushes are so common that we notice them only at the end of July, when the berries are ripe. But pay attention to those shoots on which the raspberries ripen. They consist of two parts: a long red stem coming out of the ground, and short green branches with berries that grew on it. This red twig grew in the past...

In Asia and the Mediterranean, the fig tree is the most common plant. She gives people most valuable product food - figs. It is also called fig or wineberry. Figs contain a lot of sugar and also contain vitamins A, B1, B2, C. In the Bible, ancient religious book, the fig tree is a symbol of fertility. From 20 to 100 kg of fruits are collected from one tree. Fig tree…

Look at the groundnut pod. It is very similar to a pea and bean pod. And groundnuts, or peanuts, belong to the same family - legumes. Both the bush and the peanut flowers remind us of a very familiar plant - the pea. But that's where the similarities end. A peanut flower on a long stalk emerges from the axil at the base of the leaf petiole, attached...

We know that there is such an aromatic variety of apples with a specific taste - anise, that there are anise liqueurs, liqueurs and anise caramel. But perhaps few people know what kind of plant this is – anise. Anise, or star anise, is it a shrub or not? tall tree with fragrant, fragrant leathery leaves. Both the leaves and bark of star anise secrete a secretion that...

Laurel evergreen - this is what botanists call this low evergreen tree or bush. It has beautiful, fragrant leaves covered with a dense shiny skin. IN Ancient Greece laurel was considered a sacred plant and was planted near temples, dedicated to god Apollo. Laurel was sung by poets. Heroes, victorious warriors, poets, and emperors were crowned with a wreath of its leaves. Ancient Greek myth says that the most beautiful of...

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 of Conifers or Pinopsida, which belongs to the department of Gymnospermae.

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

The height of the evergreen sequoia is about 90 m, and the record height is 113 m. It was recorded in national park Redwoods in California. The trunk diameter reaches 6–11 m and can increase by 2.5 cm per year. Sequoia has the most valuable wood among taxodiaceae 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, and deeply furrowed. The quality of wood varies not only depending on the location of growth, but also within the same trunk. The crown is narrow, starting above the lower third of the trunk. Oval cones and short shoots with flat and bluish-gray needles give the sequoia beauty and splendor. The root system is formed by lateral roots that go shallow into the soil.

Sequoia evergreen is one of the longest-living plants on Earth: its life 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 sequoia (like all conifers) are strobili - modified shortened shoots bearing special leaves - sporophylls, on which spore-forming organs - sporangia are formed. There are male strobili (they are called microstrobilae) and female strobili (megastrobili). Sequoia is a monoecious plant (microstrobiles and megastrobilians develop on the same tree). Microstrobiles are solitary; they are located on the tips of shoots or in the axils of leaves. Megastrobiles are collected in small oval-shaped single cones. One of the features of sequoia is its ability to produce abundant growth, which does not differ in growth rate and life expectancy from seedlings grown from seeds. The redwood forests in America consist mainly of trees that grew this way.

At the end Cretaceous period and in the Tertiary period, evergreen sequoia, along with other representatives of taxodiaceae, was widespread in the northern hemisphere, but now remnants of forests with its participation are preserved only in a limited area of ​​western North America, namely, on a narrow strip of the Pacific coast from Monterey County in northern California to the river Clearly 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. Sequoia evergreen needs very humid climate, therefore it does not go further from the coast than 32–48 km, remaining in the zone of influence of humid sea air.

Sequoia forests were first discovered by Europeans on the Pacific coast in 1769. Based on the color of the wood, sequoia then received its name “Redwood”, which has survived to this day. In 1847, the Austrian botanist Stefan Endlicher isolated these plants into an independent genus and gave it the name “sequoia” in honor of Sequoyah (Sequoyah, 1770–1843), an outstanding Iroquois leader who invented the Cherokee alphabet.

Because of its excellent wood and rapid growth, sequoia is specially grown in forestry. Light, dense, not subject to rotting and insect attacks, sequoia wood is widely used as a building and carpentry material, used for the manufacture of furniture, sleepers, telegraph poles, railway cars, paper and tiles. The absence of odor allows it to be used in tobacco and Food Industry. It is used to make boxes and crates for cigars and tobacco, barrels for storing honey and molasses. Because of its excellent wood and rapid growth, sequoia is specially grown in forestry. Sequoia is used and how ornamental plant, breeding it for this purpose 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 Metasequoia glyptostroboides.

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

Like the evergreen sequoia, giant sequoia was widespread in the northern hemisphere at the end of the Cretaceous and in the Tertiary period, 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 so amazed Europeans that they began to give it names greatest people that time. Thus, the famous English botanist D. Lindley, who first described this plant, named it Wellingtonia in honor of the Englishman Duke of Wellington, hero of the Battle of Waterloo. The Americans, in turn, proposed the name Washingtonia (or Washington sequoia) in honor of the first US President D. Washington, who led 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 its longevity and can probably live up to 3 or even 4 thousand years.

Because of their durable, rot-resistant wood, sequoiadendrons in their homeland have been rapaciously exterminated 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 bear proper names: “Father of the Forests”, “General Sherman”, “General Grant” and others. These trees are real giants flora. It is known, for example, that an orchestra and three dozen dancers can easily fit on the cut of one of them, and cars pass through tunnels made in the lower parts of the trunks of some other trees. One of the largest of these trees, the General Sherman, weighs about 2,995,796 kg.

Sequoiadendron as an ornamental plant is grown in many countries of the world; for example, it has taken root well in parks and gardens in the southwestern part of Europe, where it was brought back in the mid-19th century.

Sequoiadendrons are used not only for decorative purposes. Sequoiadendron wood, which does not rot, is used in construction work, for the manufacture of tiles and fences. Thick tree bark (30–60 cm) is used as linings in fruit containers.

Sequoia evergreen (mammoth tree) – the only representative of the genus of woody plants from the Cypress family.

origin of name

Regarding the origin of the name, from the moment the name “sequoia” was assigned to this plant by the Austrian botanist S. Endlicher in 1847, to today, there is debate among experts about the etymology of this word. The researchers were divided into two opposing camps. The first believe that the name was given in honor of the leader of one of the Cherokee Indian tribes (the tribe lived in the area where this plant was first encountered and described) - George Guest (Sequoias), in order to perpetuate his name and contribution to the development of the Cherokee language, so how he invented the Cherokee alphabet and was the publisher of the first newspaper in this language (in 1826). Moreover, S. Endlicher’s biographers note his interest in linguistics and his tendency to name new plants in honor of famous personalities. The latter believe that the name “sequoia” has roots in Latin, where it means “to follow something,” explaining that the genus Sequoia was bred from the genus Taxodium and is its follower, also a follower of the vegetation of the forests of the past. Indeed, Sequoia is one of the oldest plants on the planet.

Modern research from 2012 to 2017 tends to favor the first version of the origin of the name Sequoia.

There is another name for this plant - mammoth tree. Really relevant appearance this relict plant. A tree of enormous height and thickness, with a bizarre trunk shape and branches reminiscent of a tusker.

Description

Sequoia is an evergreen tree, one of the tallest (up to 110 m) and long-lived (more than 2000 years) plants on the planet. The tall, straight trunk grows over 10 meters in diameter and has a very thick bark, sometimes more than 30 cm. In its natural habitat, the Sequoia is called a “mahogany tree” because when the bark is removed from the tree, it has a red-brown color, which It gets dark for a while. The conical crown is formed by long branches that grow almost horizontally or slightly at an angle. The leaves on the branches are flat and elongated, growing up to 2.5 cm, while older leaves are scale-like and shorter - from 0.5 to 1 cm. The roots do not penetrate deeply into the ground, but diverge widely with lateral shoots.

Sequoia has a feminine and masculinity(monoecious plant). Pollination occurs towards the end of winter, then after 8-9 months, ovoid cones up to 3 cm in size ripen. Inside each cone there are up to 7 seeds, each up to 4 mm.

Reproduction

Propagated by seeds and vegetatively by cuttings and grafting. It easily produces new shoots from an already cut tree - from a stump, or produces lateral shoots from the trunk, which is due to the presence of dormant buds.

Growing conditions

Research shows that the first sequoias appeared on earth more than 200 million years ago and occupied vast areas of the northern hemisphere. Then, with a change in climate on the planet, the plant gradually moved to more southern latitudes and was discovered and described on the Pacific coast. Sequoia loves vast spaces, warmth and a lot of moisture in the soil, which is why today it is distributed mainly on the American continent, in the state of California, near the ocean. The growing area is not very large, approximately 700 km along coastline, going deeper into the continent from 8 to 75 km. It grows both on the flat coast and rising to a height of up to 900 m above sea level. Sequoia loves ravines and gorges, especially those where there is often fog, but specimens growing above 300 meters above sea level are not tall and not so powerful. It is also introduced in latitudes where the climate is suitable for it, in particular in the Sochi Black Sea region comfortable conditions for the growth of this giant tree. Is thermophilic tropical plant, can tolerate short-term frosts down to -15ºС.

Application

Lightweight, low rotting and durable wood allows Sequoia to be used as construction material, in furniture production, in the manufacture of sleepers and support masts. Since wood is practically odorless, it is widely used as a container board in the production of packaging for the food industry and tobacco production.

Selected species of Sequoia are used in landscape construction as dominants and in the art of bonsai.

Since this plant is considered a relict, scientists carefully monitor unique specimens and classify Sequoia as one of the most tall plants on the planet. Such specimens are given names and issued a passport. The tallest Mammoth tree on the planet is named Hyperion, reaches a height of 115.61 m and could have grown further if woodpeckers had not damaged extreme point growth.

At the beginning of the 21st century, American scientists conducted research that found that trees on Earth cannot overcome the growth height of 130 meters. This is due to physical processes on the planet, such as friction and gravity. These processes occur between the bark of the wood and the liquid that comes out through holes in the bark.

Sem. taxodiaceae
Sequoiadendron giganteum

Giant Sequoiadendron or mammoth tree- giant evergreen conifer tree gigantic sizes, having external resemblance its huge hanging branches with mammoth tusks. The tallest tree in the Nikitsky Botanical Garden.

Its homeland is the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada and warm California. And there, in my homeland, it’s huge evergreen tree reaches 80–100 m heights, since sequoiadendron is a very durable breed (can live up to 5 thousand years). In 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 the giant sequoiadendron, planted in the Upper Park in 1885. The trunk diameter 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 coarse, hard, dark green in color with gray tint. The cones are small (5–8 cm), oblong-ovate. Ripen 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 down to 24–25°C. It loves loose, deep, fresh soils, but even here in Crimea it does well on calcareous soils.

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

The dryness of the summer Crimean 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. English traveler Labb found the world's largest trees. 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 Indian language, but the same name was borne by one of the Indian leaders of the Iroquois tribe, the inventor of Indian writing.

In Nikitsky botanical garden - s 1858.

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

At the end of the last century, a lightning strike split the trunk of one 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 received the name "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 tunes, 16 couples dance freely and there is room 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 drove through an ancient dark forest, a fantastic forest, where the word “man” ceases to sound proudly, 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 its homeland, California, there are no sequoiadendron trees older than 2 thousand years. But according to scientists’ forecasts, they can live up to 6–7 thousand years.

For those who saw a sequoia for the first time, it will seem like something magical, coming from a children's fairy tale. Scientific name — giant sequoiadendron (Sequoiadendron giganteum) or sequoia, but it also has another name - mammoth tree. It is truly insane in size, yes, and in appearance the branches of the tree are very similar to the tusks of a mammoth. The average diameter of a giant can reach up to 10 meters, and the height of some specimens exceeds 110 meters.

It seems that redwoods have a fairly long history of existence on Earth, and similar forests of mammoth trees already existed during the time of dinosaurs. Then they grew all over the planet, and today their natural habitat is limited to a strip of the foggy coast of Northern California (hence the name - evergreen sequoia, or Californian - Sequoia sempervirens) and a site in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Average age giant sequoias It’s hard to say exactly, they suggest 3-4 thousand years, although some are 13 thousand years old!

After mammoth tree was discovered by Europeans, its name changed several times. Thus, the famous British botanist D. Lindley, who first spoke about this plant, called it Wellingtonia in honor of the Duke of Wellington, hero of the Battle of Waterloo. The Americans, in turn, proposed to name washingtonia(or Washington redwood), in honor of the first president D. Washington. But since the names Washingtonia and Wellingtonia had previously been assigned to other plants, in 1939 this species received the name Sequoiadendron.

Unusual facts:

A living redwood that has been felled will continue to try to grow using its shoots. If nothing prevents this, the shoots facing upward will turn into independent trees, and many groups of sequoia trees got their start in this way. A “cathedral” or family of trees is precisely the trees that grew from the undead remains of the trunk of a fallen sequoia, and since they grew along the perimeter of the former stump, they form a circle. If you analyze the genetic material from the cells of these trees, you will find that it is the same in all of them and in the stump from which they grew.

Poplars are short-lived: on average, they live no more than 100 years. But in terms of growth speed, these are record holders among trees. So, black poplar, or sedge,...

The life of the inhabitants of the planet Pandora from the film Avatar directly depended on sacred tree. If it dies, they will die too. In Madagascar they are sure: how...