detail of larger photo
by Andreas Feininger
Sequoia National Park, California, USA

Redwoods (Sequoia)

My dear friend Gill came for a visit from the USA this summer. Her home is in Humboldt County, California, which is famous for its redwoods. Like so many people she is worried about the fate of these astoundingly magnificent trees, called Sequoias. She says that the visitor centres with pictures and artifacts (such as the monstrously large saws used to cut them down!) are mushrooming, but the last remaining pure stands of Redwoods are increasingly under threat by logging companies and human 'development'.

First we must clear up a common confusion, especially on this side of 'the great pond, about the name 'Sequoia'. The scientific name for the Coast Redwoods is 'Sequoia sempervirens'. This is the tallest tree species on earth and has been known to reach about 367 feet in height!

At one time, in the history of our Earth, it grew on other continents too. Pre-ice-ages fossils have for example been found in Cornwall, UK! But now the only place that offers them ideal habitat conditions is the misty coast of California, where they grow within 30 miles of the ocean.
Then, there is the 'Giant Sequoia', also simply know as 'The Big Tree', whose scientific name is 'Sequoiadendron giganteum'. This is the tree with the greatest bulk and circumference on earth. Their height is mighty impressive as well, but the tallest is still nearly 50 feet short of the tallest Coast Redwood. The Big Tree or Giant Sequoia is botanically a different species from the Redwoods with different foliage, bark and habitat preferences. It grows in the much drier climate of the Californian western Sierra in open groves. Whereas the Coast Redwoods grow in pure stands, the Giant Sequoia shares its habitat with magnificent neighbours such as Ponderosa Pine, White Fir and Incense Cedar.
It is also more adaptable and therefore easier to cultivate than the Coast Redwoods and has been planted enthusiastically by some landowners and tree collectors since about 1850.

What follows here are 18 old historical black and white photographs. The first 16 were taken by staff and members of the University of Chicago Botany department on field trips between 1890 and the 1930's. The last two are pictures I've had for years and I do not know who made them.

6. Sequoia in Humboldt County
Note the dark silhouette of a human being
at the bottom between two trunks

9. The only way to show on a picture
just how majestic the Sequoias are
is with human being beside it.

11. A variation on the theme
Here is a house, rather than a human being
to show the mighty size of this tree.

17. This old photo shows an undercut in a Sequoia in preparation for felling. About a thousand cubic feet were chopped away to make it, which would have been enough to build a house, if this quantity had consisted of wooden planks. The lady on the horse and her husband pose to give us some idea of scale.

18.An old photo of the Boole Big Tree in Sequoia National Park with 84 people gathered at the bottom of its massive trunk. The tree was named after the logger who saved it. When I look at this picture I think of the lives these people led, which may now have come to an end. I wonder also what has happened to their tree.