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of only 144 16 km 2 35 620 acres nowhere does it grow in pure stands although in a few small areas stands do approach a pure condition the northern two thirds of its range from the american river in placer county southward to the kings river has only eight disjunct groves the remaining southern groves are concentrated between the kings river and the deer creek grove in southern tulare county groves range in size from 12 4 km 2 3 100 acres with 20 000 mature trees to small groves with only six living trees many are protected in sequoia and kings canyon national parks and giant sequoia national monument the giant sequoia is usually found in a humid climate characterized by dry summers and snowy winters most giant sequoia groves are on granitic based residual and alluvial soils the elevation of the giant sequoia groves generally ranges from 1 400 2 000 m 4 600 6 600 ft in the north to 1 700 2 150 metres 5 580 7 050 ft to the south giant sequoias generally occur on the south facing sides of northern mountains and on the northern faces of more southerly slopes high levels of reproduction are not necessary to maintain the present population levels few groves however have sufficient young trees to maintain the present density of mature giant sequoias for the future the majority of giant sequoia groves are currently undergoing a gradual decline in density since european settlement pre historic range edit while the present day distribution of this species is limited to a small area of california it was once much more widely distributed in prehistoric times and was a reasonably common species in north american and eurasian coniferous forests until its range was greatly reduced by the last ice age older fossil specimens reliably identified as giant sequoia have been found in cretaceous era sediments from a number of sites in north america and europe and even as far afield as new zealand 17 and australia 18 artificial groves edit lake fulmor featuring a small grove of giant sequoia trees top center in 1974 a group of giant sequoias was planted by the united states forest service in the san jacinto mountains of southern california in the immediate aftermath of a wildfire that left the landscape barren the giant sequoias were rediscovered in 2008 by botanist rudolf schmidt and his daughter mena schmidt while hiking on black mountain trail through hall canyon black mountain grove is home to over 150 giant sequoias some of which stand over 6 1 m 20 ft tall this grove is not to be confused with the black mountain grove in the southern sierra nearby lake fulmor grove is home to seven giant sequoias the largest of which is 20 m 66 ft tall the two groves are located approximately 175 mi 282 km southeast of the southernmost naturally occurring giant sequoia grove deer creek grove 19 20 it was later discovered that the united states forest service had planted giant sequoias across southern california however the giant sequoias of black mountain grove and nearby lake fulmor grove are the only ones known to be reproducing and propagating free of human intervention the conditions of the san jacinto mountains mimic those of the sierra nevada allowing the trees to naturally propagate throughout the canyon 21 ecology edit two giant sequoias sequoia national park the right hand tree bears a large fire scar at its base fires do not typically kill the trees but do remove competing thin barked species and aid giant sequoia regeneration giant sequoias are in many ways adapted to forest fires their bark is unusually fire resistant and their cones will normally open immediately after a fire 22 giant sequoias are a pioneer species 23 and are having difficulty reproducing in their original habitat and very rarely reproduce in cultivation due to 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 without fire shade loving species will crowd out young sequoia seedlings and sequoia seeds will not germinate these trees require large amounts of water and are often concentrated near streams their growth is dependent on soil moisture 24 25 squirrels chipmunks finches and sparrows consume the freshly sprouted seedlings preventing their growth 26 fires also bring hot air high into the canopy via convection which in turn dries and opens the cones the subsequent release of large quantities of seeds coincides with the optimal postfire seedbed conditions loose ground ash may also act as a cover to protect the fallen seeds from ultraviolet radiation damage due to fire suppression efforts and livestock grazing during the early and mid 20th century low intensity fires no longer occurred naturally in many groves and still do not occur in some groves today the suppression of fires leads to ground fuel build up and the dense growth of fire sensitive white fir which increases the risk of more intense fires that can use the firs as ladders to threaten mature giant sequoia crowns natural fires may also be important in keeping carpenter ants in check 27 in 1970 the national park service began controlled burns of its groves to correct these problems current policies also allow natural fires to burn one of these untamed burns severely damaged the second largest tree in the world the washington tree in september 2003 45 days after the fire started this damage made it unable to withstand the snowstorm of january 2005 leading to the collapse of over half the trunk in addition to fire two animal agents also assist giant sequoia seed release the more significant of the two is a longhorn beetle phymatodes nitidus that lays eggs on the cones into which the larvae then bore holes reduction of the vascular water supply to the cone scales allows the cones to dry and open for the seeds to fall cones damaged by the beetles during the summer will slowly open over the next several months some research indicates many cones particularly higher in the crowns may need to be partially dried by beetle damage before fire can fully open them the other agent is the douglas squirrel tamiasciurus douglasi that gnaws on the fleshy green scales of younger cones the squirrels are active year round and some seeds are dislodged and dropped as the cone is eaten 28 more than 30 identified species of bird have been observed living in giant sequoia groves 29 30 genome edit the genome of the giant sequoia was published in 2020 the size of the giant sequoia genome is 8 125 gbp 8 125 billion base pairs which were assembled into eleven chromosome scale scaffolds the largest of any organism at the time of publication 31 32 this is the first genome sequenced in the family cupressaceae and it provides insights into disease resistance and survival for this robust species on a genetic basis the genome was found to contain over 900 complete or partial predicted nlr genes used by plants to prevent the spread of infection by microbial pathogens the genome sequence was extracted from a single fertilized seed harvested from a 1 360 year old tree specimen in sequoia kings canyon national park identified as segi 21 it was sequenced over a three year period by researchers at university of california davis johns hopkins university university of connecticut and northern arizona university and was supported by grants from save the redwoods league and the national institute of food and agriculture as part of a species conservation restoration and management effort 33 discovery and naming edit shortly after their discovery by europeans giant sequoias were subject to much exhibition discovery by european settlers edit the giant sequoia first gained widespread attention in 1852 when grizzly hunter augustus t dowd discovered the discovery tree in calaveras grove marking the species first widely publicized discovery by non natives 34 the tree was cut down in 1853 and exhibited across the united states the story of dowd s discovery gained further notoriety following a 1859 feature in hutchings illustrated california magazine which promoted tourism to the grove 35 before augustus t dowd s well known discovery in 1852 there were three earlier encounters with giant sequoias the first known mention of the giant sequoia by a european american was in 1833 by zenas leonard a member of the joseph r walker party who recorded it in his diary while leonard did not specify a location his travels likely took him through calaveras grove but this observation remained unnoticed 34 in 1850 john m wooster encountered a giant sequoia at calaveras grove and carved his initials into the bark of the hercules tree 36 a year later in 1851 robert eccleston traveled through nelder grove with a small detachment of the mariposa battalion during the mariposa war 37 similar to leonard s experience these encounters also received no publicity naming edit the first scientific naming of the species was by john lindley in december 1853 who named it wellingtonia gigantea without realizing this was an invalid name under the botanical code as the name wellingtonia had already been used earlier for another unrelated plant wellingtonia arnottiana in the family sabiaceae the name wellingtonia has persisted in england as a common name 38 the following year joseph decaisne transferred it to the same genus as the coast redwood naming it sequoia gigantea but this name was also invalid having been applied earlier in 1847 by endlicher to the coast redwood the name washingtonia californica was also applied to it by winslow in 1854 this name too is invalid since it was already used for the palm genus washingtonia in 1907 it was placed by carl ernst otto kuntze in the otherwise fossil genus steinhauera but doubt as to whether the giant sequoia is related to the fossil originally so named makes this name invalid these nomenclatural oversights were corrected in 1939 by john theodore buchholz who also pointed out the giant sequoia is distinct from the coast redwood at the genus level and coined the name sequoiadendron giganteum for it the etymology of the genus name has been presumed initially in the yosemite book by josiah whitney in 1868 4 to be in honor of sequoyah 1767 1843 who was the inventor of the cherokee syllabary 5 an etymological study published in 2012 however concluded that the name was more likely to have originated from the latin sequi meaning to follow since the number of seeds per cone in the newly classified genus fell in mathematical sequence with the other four genera in the suborder 6 john muir wrote of the species in about 1870 do behold the king in his glory king sequoia behold behold seems all i can say some time ago i left all for sequoia and have been and am at his feet fasting and praying for light for is he not the greatest light in the woods in the world where are such columns of sunshine tangible accessible terrestrialized 39 uses edit albert bierstadt s giant redwood trees of california 1874 a large oil on canvas painting in the berkshire museum massachusetts united states 40 wood from mature giant sequoias is highly resistant to decay but due to being fibrous and brittle it is generally unsuitable for construction from the 1880s through the 1920s logging took place in many groves in spite of marginal commercial returns the hume bennett lumber company was the last to harvest giant sequoia going out of business in 1924 41 due to their weight and brittleness trees would often shatter when they hit the ground wasting much of the wood loggers attempted to cushion the impact by digging trenches and filling them with branches still as little as 50 of the timber is estimated to have made it from groves to the mill the wood was used mainly for shingles and fence posts or even for matchsticks pictures of the once majestic trees broken and abandoned in formerly pristine groves and the thought of the giants put to such modest use spurred the public outcry that caused most of the groves to be preserved as protected land the public can visit an example of 1880s clear cutting at big stump grove near general grant grove as late as the 1980s some immature trees were logged in sequoia national forest publicity of which helped lead to the creation of giant sequoia national monument citation needed the wood from immature trees is less brittle with recent tests on young plantation grown trees showing it similar to coast redwood wood in quality this is resulting in some interest in cultivating giant sequoia as a very high yielding timber crop tree both in california and also in parts of western europe where it may grow more efficiently than coast redwoods in the northwest united states some entrepreneurs have also begun growing giant sequoias for christmas trees besides these attempts at tree farming the principal economic uses for giant sequoia today are tourism and horticulture cultural history edit fifty men stand on the stump of the mark twain tree a giant sequoia felled for exhibition in 1891 giant sequoias became widely known in the united states during the second half of the 19th century several prominent trees were felled or stripped for exhibition with sections of their trunks and bark displayed in cities and at international expositions 42 the destruction of large trees for exhibition also became part of contemporary debates over the preservation of the remaining giant sequoia groves 43 44 a horse drawn wagon passing through the wawona tunnel tree in mariposa grove giant sequoias also became tourist attractions in 1881 a tunnel was cut through the wawona tunnel tree in mariposa grove to allow horse drawn stages to pass through it the tree became one of yosemite s best known attractions before falling during the winter of 1968 1969 45 a second living sequoia in mariposa grove the california tunnel tree was tunneled in 1895 and remains standing 46 individual giant sequoias have also acquired ceremonial and commemorative significance the general grant tree was designated the nation s christmas tree in 1926 47 in 1956 congress designated it a national shrine honoring members of the united states armed forces who died in service 48 the national park service describes it as the country s only living national shrine 49 threats edit the castle fire wiped out a significant portion of the giant sequoia population giant sequoias once primarily threatened by logging now face their greatest danger from the absence of regular fires fire suppression severe wildfires and competition from shade tolerant species have disrupted the natural cycle that once relied on periodic wildfires to release seeds and clear undergrowth 50 natural wildfires historically played a key role in sequoia reproduction releasing seeds from cones and clearing undergrowth to create the open nutr...