The Giant Sequoia Explained

Sequoiadendron giganteum is the giant sequoia. Fewer than 80,000 remain there today.

They average 50 to 85 meters tall. Record trees reach 94.8 meters. The General Grant tree spans 8.8 meters wide.

One tree drops nearly half a million seeds yearly.

Dendrochronology shows the oldest known specimen is 3,200 to 3,266 years old. Its bark reaches 90 centimeters thick.

Mature wood is fibrous and brittle. Felled trees often shatter. Fence posts are the retirement plan for brittle wood.

In 1868, Josiah Whitney claimed the name honored Sequoyah. A 2012 study debunked that myth.

Seed cones mature in 18 to 20 months but stay closed up to 20 years. Each holds 230 seeds on average.

Its genome has 8.125 billion base pairs across eleven scaffolds. Researchers extracted the sequence from one fertilized seed.