The Largest Trees In America Are Right Here In Northern California And They’re Mystifying
There’s nothing like the coastal redwoods, or Sequoia sempervirens, of Northern California. The Redwood State and National Parks are home to the largest trees on earth, and luckily for us here in Northern California, they are just a short drive away. If this information doesn’t make you love these natural wonders, then you just have to go see them for yourself!
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The first of these parks was established in 1966. The four parks protect 45% of all remaining coast redwood.
Pictured here is the Jedediah Smith Redwoods. Named after an explorer and fur trapper who traversed this remote region in the 1820s, this section is the northernmost of the four segments of Redwood National and State Parks, and the only one not including any part of the Pacific Coast.
Pictured here is the James Irvine Trail in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.
Throughout the parks, the numerous big trees grow close to the main road and along the park's small network of footpaths, though much of the interior has no trails so is virtually inaccessible, due to the steep terrain and the thick undergrowth.
This slice of redwood tree was put on display at Muir Woods, located farther south, in 1930. Careful study of its rings revealed that it had lived 1,021 years.
Coastal fog actually provides up to one-third of their annual water needs.
The stretch of land along the Northern California Coast that is covered by the redwood old growth forests is about 470 miles.
By the 1920s the work of the Save-the-Redwoods League, founded in 1918 to preserve remaining old-growth redwoods, resulted in the establishment of Prairie Creek, Del Norte Coast, and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Parks among others. Redwood National Park was created in 1968, by which time nearly 90% of the original redwood trees had been logged.
The forest floor, the canopy, and every thing in between is a piece of the complex puzzle.
Pictured here is the Grant Grove.
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