sequoia

The sequoia, or California redwood, is the tallest and largest tree. Twenty homes, a church, a mansion, and a bank have been built from the timber of one redwood.

The General Grant Tree, a giant sequoia 82 m/267 ft tall and up to 2,000 years old, in the Kings Canyon National Park, California. This tree, regarded as the best example of the classic sequoia shape, was in 1956 designated a National Living Shrine honouring all who have died in defence of the USA.

Either of two species of conifer tree belonging to the redwood family, native to the western USA. The redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is a long-living timber tree, and one specimen, the Howard Libbey Redwood, is the world's tallest tree at 110 m/361 ft, with a trunk circumference of 13.4 m/44 ft. The giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) reaches up to 30 m/100 ft in circumference at the base of the trunk, and grows almost as tall as the redwood. It is also (except for the bristlecone pine) the oldest living tree, some specimens being estimated at over 3,500 years of age. (Family Taxodiaceae.)

About 4,050 ha/10,000 acres of forest with ancient redwoods were preserved for the public in an agreement signed on 1 March 1999 by the US and California governments and the Pacific Lumber Company. The redwoods are located near Fortuna, California, about 400 km/250 mi north of San Francisco. In April 2000 President Clinton signed a proclamation creating the Giant Sequoia Monument in California, encompassing an area of 328,000 acres/133,000 hectares of ground and 34 of the 75 remaining groves of giant sequoia trees in the USA.