A massive buttressed trunk in thick, soft, fibrous red bark that gives under a punch
Giant sequoia — a favourite estate-avenue tree of the Victorians.
Nature · Trees
Giant sequoia
Evergreen conifer · to 90 m · over 3,000 years
Sequoiadendron giganteum — Cupressaceae
The largest tree on earth by volume, native only to about 70 groves on the western slope of California's Sierra Nevada, and introduced to Britain in 1853 — where the Victorians named it Wellingtonia after the duke who had just died. Its spongy, fibrous red bark can be a metre thick, and a 2024 study estimated around half a million now grow in the UK.
How to spot them
- ▸Massive buttressed trunk with thick, soft, fibrous red-brown bark you can punch without hurting your hand
- ▸Small scale-like blue-green leaves pressed to the shoot, prickly to handle, arranged spirally
- ▸Egg-shaped cones about 4–7 cm, staying green on the tree for years
- ▸Dense conical crown tapering to a point; the classic Victorian avenue tree of country estates
How to know it
Native to only about seventy groves on one mountain range's western slope, yet the largest tree on earth by volume
Giant sequoia, of the Sierra Nevada in California. General Sherman is the largest known individual.
Introduced to Britain in 1853 and promptly named after a duke who had died the year before
Giant sequoia — the Wellingtonia.
Small prickly scale-like leaves pressed to the shoot, and egg-shaped cones that stay green on the tree for years
Giant sequoia.
Its cones need fire's heat to open, and its thick bark and high crown let it survive the blaze
Giant sequoia — serotiny plus fire resistance.
A 2024 Royal Society Open Science study put the UK population of it at around half a million
Giant sequoia. The study laser-scanned 97 trees at three sites.
Quick-fire facts
- •Sequoiadendron giganteum, in the Cupressaceae; the genus name means 'sequoia tree'
- •General Sherman in Sequoia National Park is the largest known single-stem tree on earth by volume, at roughly 1,487 cubic metres
- •Native only to around 70 groves on the western slopes of California's Sierra Nevada
- •Introduced to Britain in 1853; British planters named it Wellingtonia after the Duke of Wellington, who died in 1852, while American botanists proposed Washingtonia
- •The coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is the taller tree; the giant sequoia is the more massive
- •Its bark is up to a metre thick, fire-resistant and low in resin; cones are serotinous, opening in fire's heat
- •A 2024 study in Royal Society Open Science, led by Ross Holland, estimated about half a million in the UK and measured growth rates close to those in the native range
- •It is listed as Endangered by the IUCN in its native range, threatened by drought and unusually severe wildfire
Drill it — 7 cards
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Sources
- Royal Horticultural Society — Sequoiadendron giganteum (giant redwood)
- Ross Holland et al. — Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in the UK: carbon storage potential and growth rates, Royal Society Open Science 11(3), 2024