Секвойядендрон гигантский, мамонтово дерево (Sequoiadendron giganteum (Lindl.)

http://www.conifers.org/cu/se2/index.htm
Дерево Орегон - Секвойа Парк

Гигантский гриззли (Grizzly Giant) - роща Марипоза, Йосимитский заповедник

Big Tree

The General Sherman tree: height 83.6 m, dbh 825 cm, crown spread 33 m, located in Sequoia National Park, CA. This tree also has the largest known stem volume, 1473.4 m³. The second largest stem volume is recorded for the General Grant tree in Kings Canyon National Park, CA, which is 885 cm dbh and 81.1 m tall. However, the largest dbh (898 cm) and the largest footprint (87.14 m²) are recorded for the Boole Tree in Kings Canyon National Park (Van Pelt 2001). It is perhaps worth noting that timber scaling data show at least one specimen of Sequoia sempervirens logged in the early 20th Century had a recorded stem volume of approximately 1540 m³ (Robert Van Pelt, e-mail, 29-Jul-1999). The tallest known giant sequoia is a specimen 94.9 m tall, first measured Aug-1998 by Michael Taylor in the Redwood Mountain Grove, California, but 94.9 m tall in July 2005 (Steve Sillett, pers. comm., 28-Jul-2005).

The giant sequoia is often called the largest living thing on earth. That superlative is basically valid, but is somewhat debatable for two reasons:

1. It is difficult to define "a single living thing" among a group (living things) where it is sometimes impossible to draw a clear line between the individual and the colony. For example, an entire mountainside may be covered with a stand of aspen trees (Populus tremuloides) that are genetically identical and physically connected with each other (i.e., a clone); such a stand could be called "a single living thing". Closer to home, taxonomically speaking, clumps of Sequoia sempervirens may also be composed of genetically identical stems. Even if we restrict the field to identifiable single individual organisms, there are individuals of Ficus religiosa reported from India and Southeast Asia that sprawl over areas of many hectares; although a direct comparison has not been made, industrious searching might turn up an individual larger than any Sequoiadendron. At this time the largest documented Ficus that I have heard of, is a banyan (F. benghalensis) in Uttar Pradesh, India, that supposedly covers 2.1 ha (Robert Van Pelt, e-mail, 29-Jul-1999).

2. A large tree is not alive in the sense that you or I are alive. The foliage and the outer surface of the tree (technically, its inner bark, cambium and sapwood) are composed wholly or in part of living cells. However, the bark and most of the wood (xylem) are dead. In this sense a tree is a little bit like a coral -- we see the living skin of tissue over a dead framework that the tree has built up over the centuries of its growth. Most biologists overlook this point and treat the entire tree, living tissue and dead wood, as "live biomass." In practice, it is extremely difficult to measure how much of a tree is actually living tissue, and I haven't heard of it being done for any large trees. As an indicator, though, my work with tree rings in Sequoiadendron generally has revealed sapwood thicknesses of about 10 cm in most of the canopy, and this represents the approximate thickness of living wood on the tree. In conclusion, the General Sherman tree has the largest stem volume and probably the largest total biomass of any known individual tree. However, a few colonial organisms, including a variety of plants and some fungi, may have greater cumulative living biomass.

Oldest

A specimen logged in the 1870's in Converse Basin was sampled by M. Hughes, R. Touchan, and E. Wright and has yielded a crossdated age of 3,266 years (RMTRR 2006). There are also ages of 3,220 years (specimen D-21) and 3,075 years (specimen D-23) collected by Andrew E. Douglass in 1919. These were stump counts (some of Douglass' samples are still in storage at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research; they weigh hundreds of pounds). Also, 3,033 years for specimen CMC3 collected by Swetnam and Baisan (Brown 1996). The only species (again, referring only to non-clonal individuals) known to attain greater ages are Pinus longaeva and Fitzroya cupressoides.

USA: California: at 900-2700 m in mixed montane coniferous forests, in isolated groves along the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada (Watson 1993). See also Thompson et al. (1999). The species has been planted throughout Europe since 1853, and is an especially popular ornamental in the U.K., where the largest specimen (45 m tall and 260 cm dbh) grows at Leod Castle north of Inverness (Hartesveldt et al. 1975).