Tiny Seeds, Giant Trees

The largest (but not the tallest) trees in the world are the giant sequoias. Older sequoia trees average about 250 feeta in height. The largest of these, the General Sherman, the General Grant, and the Boole Tree are located in or near Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks in California, U.S.A. They are from 27 to over 30 feet thick at 4 feet above the ground.

Also remarkable is this fact, as noted by the publication Discovering Sierra Trees, by Stephen F. Arno: The trunk of the General Sherman is still 17 feet in diameter at a point 120 feet above ground! This tree is 272 feet tall, and its first large branch is so high up that it could stretch out over a 12-story office building. This branch is 7 feet thick and 125 feet long.

Yet the seed of the sequoia is so tiny that it requires 91,000 to make a pound! Compare that to the modest Digger pine that might reach a height of only 60 feet and a diameter of 2 feet and yet it takes only 750 of its seeds to make a pound.

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