Sequoia sempervirens
coast redwood
Ascend our foothills and look to the Bay, and you will see Stanford stretched out before you, separated from the water by what looks like a swath of forest, coniferous spires rising through the haze. Visitors are at first puzzled, and then marvel that the buildings of Palo Alto have been entirely swallowed up by the trees from this viewpoint and even from atop Hoover Tower on campus itself. Coast redwood accounts for almost all of this upper-canopy urban forest. Then turn around and look westwards to the green slopes and peaks of the Santa Cruz Mountains to see redwoods in their native haunts.
Close relatives of the redwood once flourished across the Northern Hemisphere, but the group has now retreated to redwood’s current habitat along the Coast Ranges from southwestern Oregon to Big Sur in California. There it is bathed in the fog that supplies it the plentiful water it needs, especially in our rainless summer months: the fog catches in the crown, the moisture not only dripping to the soil below but directly absorbed by leaves and even bark.
The coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is often confused with its massive cousin, the giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), which is also known as Sierra redwood and has similarly thick reddish bark. The California legislature designated the “California redwood” as the state tree in 1937 – but which one? Well, both species, the attorney general clarified later on, one might imagine sheepishly. (Nevada is the only other US state with two official trees – the single-leaf pinyon and the famously long-lived bristlecone pine.) The two redwoods are actually quite easy to tell apart, at any time of year: coast redwood’s short, flat needles are arranged in two-dimensional sprays; giant sequoia’s triangular, awl-like scaly leaves are pressed closely around the branchlet. Turn over a spray of coast redwood and see faint white lines of stomata under each leaf. The two-ranked sprays look very much like a pinnately compound leaf; even botanically inclined people, when asked to point out a single leaf, almost never select a single small needle, which is the correct answer.
The sprays look very similar to the deciduous ones of Taxodium, and this was indeed the genus first given it, along with species sempervirens (Latin for ever-green or ever-flourishing). Later, its genus was changed to Sequoia by an Austrian botanist and linguist who was likely aware of Sequoyah (circa 1770–1843), born in Cherokee country in Georgia, who invented a syllabic Cherokee alphabet that enabled tribal literacy. The connection to the name was not made explicit, however, and there is a competing claim that Sequoia derives from the Latin word for sequence. In any case, avoid using just the word Sequoia to refer to coast redwood in conversation, since many might think you mean the giant sequoia, unless you can somehow pronounce the capitalization and italics correctly. Using an unqualified “redwood” is common and acceptable; rarely is the Sierra redwood so called these days.
Sequoia sempervirens can live for more than 1000 years, breaching 2200 years in some records. Unlike many long-lived trees, it grows rapidly, achieving much of its height within its first hundred years. It is a race of giants, easily growing to 200 feet tall in the right conditions. Dozens of measured examples in the wild exceed 360 feet. The tallest known, Hyperion, named for a Titan god, was discovered in 2006 and reaches over 380 feet – the tallest tree in the world. (The name is cognate with our words hyper, over, and uber.) The next three contenders are within 9 feet; measurements need to be precise. Climbing up, when allowed, and dropping a tape measure is the gold standard.
Save the Redwoods League and Humboldt State University research shows marked increases in growth rates of old-growth redwoods in the latter half of the 20th century, possibly due to increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, a longer growing season, and, for some areas, increased access to sunlight due to decreasing fog. They also concluded that old-growth redwood forests sequester more carbon above ground than any other forest on Earth.
Redwoods have been regularly planted on campus; their popularity hasn’t waned. Several were densely planted in 2003, along with deodar cedars, along Campus Drive West at the Clark Center (Bio-X). A specimen probably planted in 1924 at 1509 Portola Avenue, Palo Alto, measured 114 feet in 1995. The backyard coast redwood at 3759 La Donna Street, an official Palo Alto heritage tree, measured 125 feet tall with a diameter of 64 inches in 1999.
Numerous redwoods are in the area of Salvatierra Walk and the back of the Law School that were in the gardens of early faculty homes that once occupied the area. A fine grove is between the Faculty Club and Kingscote Gardens, and may contain Stanford’s tallest; one of campus’s best single specimens is in the lawn north of the Old Union.
A group of five, the largest with a 15-foot girth, is off Serra Mall east of Herrin Hall with a plaque reading as follows:
STANFORD PALOS ALTOS
These redwoods were planted in 1915 by Stanford botany professor and pioneer American plant physiologist George J. Peirce, faculty member from 1897 to 1933. in accordance with Professor Peirce’s intention, the university named these natural monuments “Stanford Palos Altos.” They symbolize Stanford’s strength, independence, and enduring quality.
El Palo Alto, for which the city of Palo Alto is named and which appears on Stanford’s seal, stands beside San Francisquito Creek in Palo Alto.
Our neighboring city’s landmark El Palo Alto redwood was said to be 1064 years old in 2004. Its diameter is 7½ feet and height 110 feet (in 1951 it measured 134 feet). Originally double trunked, it lost the second one in 1886, either in a huge storm or, more likely, during construction of a new trestle bridge by Southern Pacific Railroad.
Name derivation: See text above.
About this Entry: Authored Mar 2025 by Sairus Patel; the campus tree location paragraphs are verbatim from Ron Bracewell’s 2005 book Trees of Stanford & Environs and will be redone shortly.
