Coast Redwood

The coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is the tallest tree on Earth, with the record holder, Hyperion, standing about 116 meters. It grows in the fog belt of coastal northern California and southern Oregon and can live for more than two thousand years. The IUCN lists it as Endangered.

🧬 Field Guide Specimen: Open Coast Redwood in the CRV Science Field Guide to log the specimen, see its place among the Diaphoretickes lineages in the Cladogram Explorer, and test your recall in the Red List conservation game.

Water is pulled up through the xylem by evaporation from the leaves, held together by cohesion. The tallest trees are limited by the difficulty of lifting water against gravity and friction, and the top leaves are smaller and tougher than those below.

Coastal fog provides a large share of the summer water, either dripping from the canopy to the soil or absorbed directly through leaves. Changes in fog frequency could affect the forests.

Redwood forests store more carbon per hectare than almost any other forest. Only a small fraction of the original old-growth forest remains after logging, and the surviving groves are protected in parks. Trees resprout from burls after fire or damage. See Carbon sink.

• Carbon sink — forest carbon storage
• Wildfire — fire and redwoods
• Photosynthesis — leaf function in tall trees