About Sequoia

Sequoia or "Mammoth Tree" is a conifer of the "Cupressaceae" family that can be of Sequoiadendron, Metasequoia or Sequoia variety. They are giant trees that can reach the age of 3000 years; they can grow to be more than 100 m in height, with a trunk diameter of 13 m, weighing 2400 tons.

The name "sequoia" was given in honor of the Cherokee leader Sequoyah (1776-1842), who invented a unique alphabet, teaching his people to read and write. One of the first books in the Cherokee language was the Bible (1825).

The Sequoia trees are of three types: the Redwood Californian (Sequoia Sempervirens), also known as Redwood, often used as an ornamental conifer, the Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron Giganteum), considered the largest tree in terms of total volume, being protected by law and Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia), known only as fossil until 1941 when it was discovered in China.

The official size record is held by a giant sequoia, called "General Sherman", found in Sequoia National Park in California. Rising to 83.8 m and 31.3 m circumference at the base, it is the largest existing organism on Earth. Its thickness is more than ten times that of a blue whale. At an estimated 1486 cubic meters it contains enough wood material to build 40 houses with 5 rooms each. Its outer bark is said to have a thickness of more than 1.3m. It was originally thought about General Sherman that it is over 6,000 years old, but this date has now been revised to just 2150 years.

The highest tree in the world is a Sequoia sempervirens, called Hyperion. It measures 115 m in height. This tree was discovered only recently in 2006 in the so-called "Redwood National Park".