Our Environment: “Redwoods Are Like Giant Shrines to Life” by Scott Turner
Sunday, January 26, 2020
How fitting that it was drizzling when we arrived at the 40-acre grove of old-growth trees within Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, located in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California,
The colossal trees grow in a mossy, fern-filled terrain that looks and (especially in a rainy mist) feels like what it is—a temperate rainforest. The soaring specimens of plant life in the park are said to have inspired some of California’s earliest efforts in redwood preservation.
For three of us—me, Karen and Noah—this was our first encounter with redwoods. Rachel had met these trees once before.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe park’s tallest redwood rises 277 feet, sports a diameter of more than 16 feet wide, and is some 1,500 years old. The tree is 28 feet shorter than the Statue of Liberty.
Given my Eastern North America frame of reference, the redwoods were dizzyingly unfathomable. That helps explain why I spent much of our eight-tenth-of-a-mile, loop-trail stroll in stunned silence; in reverence.
Indeed, at times it was easier to concentrate on littler things in the landscape, such as the beds of wild ginger surrounding some of the giant trees, and the scattered banana slugs on the mossy fence posts and moist tree bark.
The meaty slugs looked like elongated small bananas, colored almost neon yellow. Slugs break down organic matter, such as leaves, moss and animal droppings, into soil humus.
Other plants, which had adapted to grow under the dense shade of the redwoods included the clover-like redwood sorrel, which blanketed some of the ground, as well as California bay trees, tanoaks, and hazelnut trees.
Here and there, we spotted a western gray squirrel. According to the University of California, these squirrels are “distinguished from the eastern gray and other squirrel species by their very long bushy tails that are primarily gray with white-frosted outer edges.”
The copse featured a powerfully fresh, pine scent. Redwoods are evergreens, with a toolkit of survival adaptations, including long horizontal roots, thick bark, and exceptional height.
Although redwoods may grow tall, their roots are quite shallow, rarely sinking more than a dozen feet below the soil surface. On the other hand, the roots of a single tree may radiate out hundreds of feet. Noted a trail guide, “Wrapping their roots round other redwood roots, these trees help each other stay in the ground until flood and wind finally knock them over.”
Redwood bark contains tannic acid, which provides defense against insects, fungus and fire. That tannic acid also gives the bark its deep-cinnamon color.
Coastal redwoods create “family circles,” with young redwoods sprouting from the base of old trunks. If a tree falls, new redwoods may rise right around the former “parent” tree. Same for a logged redwood: the roots live and may give rise to a ring of new trees.
Redwood cones are only the size of olives. Each of the seeds in a cone is the size of an oatmeal flake. Given that a thick blanket of leaves covers the forest floor under redwoods, these seeds seldom find the soil surface to give rise to new trees.
It was relatively dark beneath the trees. In the Santa Cruz Mountains, the weather is said to change quickly. Sure enough, in places, where a redwood had fallen, misty slivery light sliced down through the canopy to the forest floor, giving the setting a spiritually arousing look.
For centuries, rain and fog off the coast have sustained these trees. However, climate change is decreasing the amount of rainfall and fog that have nurtured the redwoods for centuries.
Redwoods are like giant shrines to life. I still can’t fathom that some trees are the size of 25-story buildings, and more than 15 centuries old! That redwood families grow off one root system and that trees across the forest intertwine their roots to hold one another up is marvelous.
On our way out of the park, we stopped to watch three black-tailed deer graze in a field. This was a moment to praise the people who preserve and protect such places, but also to sit a bit and consider that in today’s warmer and drier world, nothing is sacred.
Scott Turner is a Providence-based writer and communications professional. For more than a decade he wrote for the Providence Journal and we welcome him to GoLocalProv.com.
Related Articles
- Our Environment: “Fire Kills” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “In Celebration of Community” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “The Waka-Waka Wake Up Call” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “Rejuvenating Break on Our Journey” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “The Original Peeps” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “Humbling Ocean Waves” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “Migration - A Sign of Summer Turning into Fall” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “Beating It from Providence” By Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “Red Spotted Delight” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “Crickets & The Coming of Fall” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “The Pigeons of Yankee Stadium” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “Obituary for a Swamp White Oak Tree” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “The Scented City” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “A Moment of Tranquility” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “Sunsets at Salter Grove” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “Snowbirds Arrive” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “The Coast of Northern California” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “Skunked” by Scott Turner
- Our Environment: “The American Robin Arrives” by Scott Turner
