Encyclopedia
of Stanford Trees, Shrubs, and VinesEncyclopedia
of Stanford Trees, Shrubs, and Vines
The well-known big trees need no introduction, but they are not common on campus. They grow to around 300 feet and live to over 3000 years. The bark and cones resemble those of the coast redwood, except that the cones are at least twice as big, but the leaves are quite different, being small and packed tightly like tiles around the branchlets. There is a sizable but declining specimen between 676 and 694 Alvarado Row dating to 1930. In Canfield Court, east of the Bookstore, there is a specimen growing in company with a coast redwood and a deciduous dawn redwood, allowing convenient comparison. Two specimens are left of the driveway at 525 Los Arboles Avenue. Another pair is on the east side of Keck Science Building at the California Native Garden. Three are at 817 Pine Hill Road. In Palo Alto, see a giant in the backyard of 1519 Mariposa Drive. Every one of these specimens is handsome.
Perhaps campus residents are deterred by visions of trunks wide enough to drive a car through, but growth is relatively slow; as a result the big tree does not drop much litter (a problem with coast redwood) and the tiny awlshaped leaves, at most ½ inch long, melt inoffensively into shrubbery. Big trees are not as hungry for water as coast redwoods. Fossil evidence shows that the big trees once grew in Europe.
Since the big tree is sometimes referred to as Sequoia gigantea and sometimes as Sequoiadendron giganteum, a humble gardener may wonder why it is that common names are often decried as ambiguous, or conversely as nonunique, whereas botanical names are not. In this case, the big tree seems to have not one botanical name, but two. Botanists describe this situation as synonymy. With the passage of time Sequoiadendron has become the usage of choice among botanists, though in gardening books the term giant sequoia may still be seen. In a Kew Garden grove the sign still [2005] uses the name Wellingtonia [Wellingtonia gigantea Lindley 1853]. There is a discussion of some of the nomenclatural issue at the Gymnosperm Database.
Big trees may not be as tall as coast redwoods but, with their greatly larger girths, may contain twice the weight of wood, around 1300 tons. The mass of such a tree is hard to appreciate. Imagine 45 automobiles, each weighing 2 tons, balanced precariously on top of one another to match the height of a big tree; that would be 90 tons, rather more than the weight of a big whale.
The weight of a mature big tree is more than 14 times greater. On Lomita Drive at Harmony House, there is a crazy cultivar named ‘Pendula’, about 10 feet tall, that looks more like a praying mantis than a tree. The younger half of the trunk is horizontal; there are a few short vertical leaders, but they are doomed to fall of their own weight and hang down as all their numerous predecessors have done. A striking young S. giganteum, rapidly reaching upward in the form of a narrow cone, is in Serra Grove, off Serra Mall at Sequoia Hall. Distinguished by its intense blue coloration, it is a cultivar named ‘Hazel Smith,’ planted Spring 2002.
The big tree, like the incense cedar, typically grow well on campus for a few decades into beautiful young trees before their leader branches suffer wilting and dieback from Botryosphaeria canker.
Illustrations (links open new windows): Silhouettes from Trees of Stanford & its Environs
Additions/Revisions:Name derivation, genus | species combination of Sequoia and the Greek dendron (tree) | giant
Related material: Canopy Trees for Palo Alto Tree Library Botanical
name index | Common name index | Family
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