In Alabama you would probably be planting dawn redwood for a shapely, lasting specimen.

I was mainly just thinking Ken. :-) Although not common, I know there are sheltered locations in the east that could easily support that height around the Appalachian mountains.

I know there are Dawn Redwoods in the east that are less than 70 years old and are about 130 to 140 feet tall. I wonder if they could be even quicker to that height in a more moist site.

I've read Sequoia sempervirens has been known to reach 200 feet high with 7.5 foot trunk diameter in 80 years. I don't know if there is a conifer that could reach that quicker.

This post was edited by treeguy123 on Sun, Dec 28, 14 at 14:04

I think some of those Norfolk Island Pines folks plant in their yards in Florida must get half that height in like ten years! Gotta wonder what their ultimate height there might be, if not for hurricanes and other powerful storms.

+oM

The problem, as hinted by others, is it would never get to 200 ft. high as a lone specimen because it will become a magnet for lightning and storms. Which will then bring it down. Better to plant a big grove of Metasequoias.

Notwithstanding the overall question of adaptability, Metasequoia is also better than Sequoia in the SE because they clearly have less wind resistance. At least one of the branches/tops of one of William & Mary's trees was brought down by wind during a hurricane, I can't remember if the other was lightning or wind. In any case, the same did not happen to the nearby Metasequoia.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Sun, Dec 28, 14 at 16:54

Yeah, I'm sure Metasequoia is wind resistant. I guess most trees in the Cupressaceae family are wind resistant because I know bald cypress is, and I also know Coast Redwood is wind resistant. Check out the link below. The "Great Storm of 1987" had steady winds of 80 mph and some gusts to 130 mph but the Redwoods survived easy in England.

I'm sure lighting really is the main killer for Redwoods in the east, but if growing in a sheltered hollow around the Appalachian mountains, I bet a Coast Redwood could reach 200 feet. Someone has noted before that they grow slower in the east (For reasons I don't know). The tallest known tree in the east currently is a Tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) which is over 192 feet tall in the Appalachian mountains.

And the limited time I've searched on Dawn Redwoods, it seems like they slow down in growth a lot at around the 140 or 150 foot mark perhaps, but I'm not for sure. The tallest known Dawn Redwood in China (from a more reliable source) is 164 feet tall (50m).

Here is a link that might be useful: Redwoods after Great Storm of 1987

This post was edited by treeguy123 on Mon, Dec 29, 14 at 2:37

I meant resistant in the sense a physicist would use it: the open, airy canopy of a Metasequoia surely *poses less resistance* to winds than would the densely branched, evergreen boughs of a Sequoia. That being said, yes, they are sturdy trees. It's just the the W&M trees clearly showed they will be impacted by hurricane force winds in the SE.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Mon, Dec 29, 14 at 6:12

That sure is an interesting site!
Thank you, treeguy123.
Mike

David, iMHO "sequoia" and it's "densely branched" boughs likely is most accurate describing sequoiadendron giganteum (sierra redwood) which while ultimately huge is generally slower growing and perhaps somewhat less tall at maturity than the generally more openly branched coast redwood (sequoia sempervirens)

I don't think you can top Metasequoia for fast growth. I saw a map somewhere on line that showed the concentration of oldest and tallest specimens in the USA. There was a distinct concentration of specimens from Southern New England through the Middle Atlantic states (NJ seemed the epicenter as I recall) down to the Upper South...so, growing zones from 6 to 8 in regions with relatively high annual precipitation (over 40 inches), hot/humid summer, cool to cold Winters, and moist & acid soils (even tolerant of standing water, but salt intolerant). Keep in mind, these areas of the country were to first to (re-) introduce this species to North America (part of its ancient range), so time will tell how well they do outside of traditional planting zones. Heck, the Asian location source of this species is quite different in its climate from areas in the USA where they seem to excel, so experiment.

My impression is that S. sempervirens is less tolerant of hot and humid summer conditions.

Coast redwoods grow right behind the beach vegetation in many parts of its native area. Just south of Crescent City there is redwood forest on top of a hill immediately inland from the ocean, tremendously concentrated, already strong storm winds must sweep up the cliff there.

The problem with the eastern North American conditions is that coast redwood is a California tree, not even able to remain undamaged during occasional (for example 1990, which was the coldest in 30 years) sharp winters in Seattle. In the wild it is replaced as the coastal strip indicator by Sitka spruce way down in extreme southern Oregon.

And as windy as it can be, the west coast does not have regular hurricanes. Dawn redwood on the other hand comes from the similar climate of eastern Asia, which even shares native genera with eastern North America (Magnolia, Stewartia and so on) that do not occur in California and vicinity at all.

bboy, coast redwood may sometimes be damaged by occasional severe cold events in the PNW has not stopped it from growing to 149' or more in seattle (van pelt, "champion trees of Washington state" OTOH, the same book has giant sequoia growing to 157' and metasequoia to 100' at the time the book was published in 1990 FWIW. since I don't know when any of these were planted it's obviously hard to determine comparative growth rates other than the reasonable surmise that all 3 can grow rather fast in our areas.

The climates of South central China and Eastern North America are still quite different. Precipitation in most of Asia is extremely monsoonal with very wet Summers and very arid Winters. The climates of eastern North America are much more complicated and variable. Btw, I think this proves to be a challenge for DR's cultivation in regions of North America which are prone to both late frosts and early Spring/late Winter warmth. The warmth causes the DR to leaf out early only to be zapped by subarctic cold. In coastal areas of North America the Spring warmth tends to be delayed by a cold ocean, therefore, delaying new growth.

I had a friend from China once explain to me that if she were given a calendar date, she could provide a forecast for maximum and minimum daily temperature range and the chance of rain for her city. Not nearly as predictable here.
I have a hunch that the greater variability of climate found in eastern North America, gives Bald Cypress an adaptive edge in many areas of North America.

The 1990 effect on local coast redwoods was foliage burn. I have seen the 100 ft. dawn redwood in Tacoma, the taller coast redwoods in this area and so on - over 700 of the records in Van Pelt's Washington champion trees book are of specimens I pointed out to Bob.

Details of climate variables in eastern North America and eastern Asia irrelevant to the point that general conditions in those two regions are much more similar to one another than they are to western North America. Starting with the shared hot and wet summers. A tree from the interior of China is much more likely to be a good bet in the southeast US than one that clings to a narrow coastal strip in California - as has already been seen to be the case.

This post was edited by bboy on Tue, Dec 30, 14 at 15:24

"The problem with the eastern North American conditions is that coast redwood is a California tree"

Apparently it's just my cross to bear to keep repeating this.
The Barnes tree and the William and Mary trees have lasted since 1971 and 1955, respectively; this includes the period from 1977 to 1985 which was the most severe cluster of winters in the 20th century. They all look fine and not stunted or dwarved, other than the hurricane damage to the W&M trees. Clearly in the milder parts of the Mid-Atlantic, winters do not pose a major threat to all or even most clones of this species. I never try to hide evidence contrary to my hypothesis; certainly no one else here was going to discover an early 20th century book chronicling Philly gardens that noted that 5 out of 6 attempted at the turn of the century died. But we cannot be sure it was winters that killed them. It could have been the hot dry summers of the 1930s which I seem to recall reading were known to have culled a number of the Wister and Gable rhododendron collections. Maybe they blithely assumed a summer-dry climate tree would somehow be able to fend for itself, and they were not established enough yet. It could have been some other form of neglect. Maybe anti-John Muir radicals cut them down (haha). In any case I have 25 years of trying to grow difficult or marginal plants and can say most assuredly, coast redwoods are not hard to grow around here. Not by a long shot. They are certainly much more resilient than the average rhododendron hybrid, for example. BTW they seem very drought tolerant, but there has never been anything like the droughts experienced back in the 1930s.

Some California trees are adaptable in various parts of the east coast, some are not. Longwood also has a grove of Calocedrus that look perfectly happy, the average visitor could well assume it's a native (to PA!) plant. OTOH, they have the best looking Sequoiadendron south of New England, and it still doesn't look that great. (among other reasons for having its trunk skirted by something that looks like a Victorian torture device, but is actually an electric fence for squirrels to keep them from stripping the bark)

And their habit is not open and wind-fast at all, at least here on the east coast. Maybe the "harsh conditions" versus their native haunts encourages a denser crown. The picture of the Barnes tree posted here, though, shows a more open look than the W&M trees or the 2/3 as big Norfolk Botanic garden trees. The NCSU trees are much smaller but also dense, almost appearance from a distance like gigantic, conical yews.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Tue, Dec 30, 14 at 17:01

"The 1990 effect on local coast redwoods was foliage burn. "
And, as I've always replied, the 0F in 1994 did absolutely nothing to the W&M trees. I know. I walked past them every day in the spring. This was so cold you could safely walk on the reflecting pools of some gardens in Williamsburg to check out the frozen fountain mounds. One of my friends at the time - on a dare, walked about 40' out onto a frozen brackish water cove. Even though we knew the rivers were still open. Could you do that in Seattle in 1990? (He narrowly escaped dying in 9/11 because he was a worker in one of the towers that was running late that day - guy clearly had 9 lives. And no, W&M wasn't really a feeder to Wall Street but I my freshman year I ran with the smarter crowd there...having been a "Monroe Scholar".)

I took pictures of things where the damage was notable: tops of sheltered Trachys burned between 50-100%. There was nothing to see on the redwoods. In fact I can even remember the Ficus pumila below them lining a south facing brick wall was burned.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Tue, Dec 30, 14 at 16:59

"A tree from the interior of China is much more likely to be a good bet in the southeast US than one that clings to a narrow coastal strip in California - as has already been seen to be the case."

I agree, I don't suspect Coast Reds would be a good selection for the SE, nor would many other species from the Pacific NW, I suspect.

Poorly researched article but still useful.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.knowitall.org/sandlapper/Summer-2005/PDF/Redwood.pdf

"I had a friend from China once explain to me that if she were given a calendar date, she could provide a forecast for maximum and minimum daily temperature range and the chance of rain for her city. Not nearly as predictable here.
I have a hunch that the greater variability of climate found in eastern North America, gives Bald Cypress an adaptive edge in many areas of North America."

Likewise, years ago on the HP&S board someone posted a link to a series of webcam images from northern Japan. They were arranged in calendar format so you could revisit the same date for multiple years. The snow always pretty much started in the same week of the year, and melted from the ground during the same period every spring.

I think on of the reasons my DR could grow so fast is that most years I have not had a freeze until Thanksgiving, and so far, at least for the 8 years I've been here, there has never been a late freeze. Being at the northern tip of the Bay means it can't warm up as fast in spring as it does elsewhere. I've driven UP to the middle Delaware Valley (around Trenton) and seen spring magnolias further along than they are in my neighborhood. It's tempting to try a very early M. campbellii hybrid or selection here to see what happens. But I'm sticking to late blooming Magnolias so far.

Here are the bigger Norfolk Botanic Garden Trees. Pretty dense compared to native conifers...and dawn redwood. Yes, there is some kind of foliar issue on one. I never said they were disease-proof! But I've never seen or heard of another one on the east coast having disease problems. (BTW, there is also one well over 70' tall in Silver Spring MD. DC area plant expert A.H. tracked down the owners and it was planted in the 1960s. The winter of 78 was even worse in DC than in Philly because I think the preceding drought was more serious here. Mature American hollies were sometimes _killed_ in DC by that winter. Yet, the Redwood survived! I can't remember if I have a picture of that one or not, but will take one at some point. The day I saw it I was far, far more excited by seeing a Dalbergia hupehana.)

Actually...could this be mild damage from lightning? I don't remember seeing any arrestors at that garden. Surely a tree can be struck and survive, causing something like a coronal burning as sometimes happens to people? (surface only) Whatever it was didn't jump to the other; they are further apart than this picture implies, it was taken with my zoom lens fully zoomed.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Tue, Dec 30, 14 at 17:56

btw, they are almost as big as the Williamsburg trees, not 2/3. These also survived well below 0F in 1985. Yes, the whole state was below 0F that year, even the mildest parts of Virginia Beach. My relatives tell me every Oleander was killed to the ground, some of them for good.
BTW by "here" above I mean there. It's still instinct to say I'm in the DC area. I'm not. The climate is actually notably different and not always in a good way. Winters are definitely wetter; I had Cycas panzhihuaensis survive several single digit winters there. Here, it is too wet and they rot. I think gardenweb member johnnieb's (which I sold to him from seed I grew myself) survived even this last winter.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Tue, Dec 30, 14 at 17:59

Original question was what would shoot up to 200 ft.

200 foot and no restrictions on location and my bet is on one of the California Redwoods. I KNOW they will get there.

160 feet and anyplace but the special ridges on the west coast and I bet Metasequoia. Between MOBOT, Rowe and Seecrest (did I spell that right) I have seen plenty of tall Metasequoia. The old Skidmore database lists the Ohio ones at 100 feet amd one someplace in Pennsylvania at 140. I am not sure we have evidence Metasequoia hits 200 feet ever.

Our local native broadleafed cottonwoods and Liriondrendon's (tulip tree I can't spell) shoot up to 100 like Metasequoia but I am not sure they ever hit 200.

Yes..which is why I "originally" answered:
The problem, as hinted by others, is it would never get to 200 ft. high as a lone specimen because it will become a magnet for lightning and storms.

In the Southeast/Eastern US, you don't see random trees popping up 5-10 stories above the rest of the canopy. They wouldn't last that way. Maybe in sheltered mountain valleys it's possible, but even there I don't remember seeing anything like that.

A single stemmed tree, standing above the others is VERY attractive to lightening. Think of how vulnerable a radio tower is to lightening.
If I were the OP I would adjust my search to 100' tall trees and take advantage of the champion tree lists in your state and surrounding states. Names like loblolly pine and bald cypress come to mind. I recommend species that have been in your area since the most recent ice age.

There seems to be limits to tree height in various areas. White pines that get well up above the canopy here tend to get broken off eventually. 400-500 yr old hemlocks at Mountain Lake in SW Va were at most 130 ft, and those got busted up by Hurricane Hugo in 1989. A ~140 ft cottonwood in Hagerstown City park got broken off by a hurricane in 2003.

Tallest trees are in groves of the same height in sheltered coves, protecting each other, like white pines or tulip trees here, or redwoods in the west.

Trees engineered for very long lives don't attempt great heights, at least here in the east US -- the 350 yr old white oak in Hagerstown near where I grew up was a mere 90' tall, but well over 100' in spread & more than 8' in diameter.

Edit: I show an extremely crude pic below of the ~140' cottonwood in the Hagerstown City park before the top 30' was broken off in fall 2003. The white line in the pic about 6.5' above the ground:

This post was edited by beng on Wed, Dec 31, 14 at 10:36

In our climate, the Pacific Northwest, doug-firs are the fastest to 200' typically. It's conceivable that Sequoia sempervirens might achieve heights similar or higher than the doug firs eventually but evidence points towards Dougs approaching 400' in the past, rivaling any Redwood.

I think in a shady, moist microclimate our coast sequoias would compete with doug firs for height, but not in open, full-sun.

Lightning is typically not an issue here either, it's quite rare in our climate. We can go several months at a time without a strike or the sound of thunder.

-Will

Forget the guy'a name now but somebody in Michigan's Upper Penninsula measured and claimed more than one white pine exceeding 200 ft. near Marquette. Wonder if those records still stand and/or have been verified?

;^)

I seem to recall reading (perhaps even here!) that in olden times, along the northern tier of the eastern US, white pines around 200' were not uncommon. Severe storms and lightning are less common there. That was one reason the English were so interested in having colonies in Canada. But the biggest were almost all harvested ages ago.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Wed, Dec 31, 14 at 16:40

Pinus radiata, 62m in 51 years (and 16 m in 5 years) in New Zealand.

Resin

Wow, that's a really fast pine. But it's too bad Pine pitch canker fungal disease readily attacks and kills it.

Posted by davidrt28 7 (My Page) on
Wed, Dec 31, 14 at 16:39

I seem to recall reading (perhaps even here!) that in olden times, along the northern tier of the eastern US, white pines around 200' were not uncommon. Severe storms and lightning are less common there. That was one reason the English were so interested in having colonies in Canada. But the biggest were almost all harvested ages ago.

I live in SE NY and I cut down an Eastern White Pine last summer. I measured it at close to 65 feet. I counted the rings thinking it was at least 50 years and it was just under 30 years. There are some monster ones in the cemetery across the street from my house. I don't know how tall they are exactly but they are well over twice as high as the one I cut down. It is a very fast growing tree in this area at least.

My neighbors have a metasequoia that is over 50 feet tall and 18 years old so that is definitely the fastest growing conifer in this area.

the Chief Jake Swamp White Pine in the mohawk trail, western MA is 170ft. From the civil war era. Tallest in New England. 200ft would push the physical limits of strobus.

This post was edited by SC77 on Thu, Jan 1, 15 at 10:41

"Pinus radiata, 62m in 51 years (and 16 m in 5 years) in New Zealand.

Resin "
Is that the pine species in the plantations in the north of the north NZ island? I was told that the trees was cut down after just 15 years but no one knew what species of pine it was.

Another fast growing, 200 feet tree would be abies grandis, but maybe not as fast as douglas firs and sequoias?

Double post, no idea why.

This post was edited by bboy on Thu, Jan 1, 15 at 14:46

Lack of hurricanes is one of the main reasons the West Coast has multiple towering tree species, that routinely get very tall in the absence of logging. The Tampa area of Florida is the world capital of electric storms, but even though this phenomenon is not as routine out here trees that have been hit are not particularly rare. A lingering, apparently rather small- and slow-growing planted coast redwood here and there back East does not establish that this species is going to shoot up tall and fast like a cottonwood under eastern conditions. Whereas multiple dawn redwoods have grown tall back there, in a comparatively short time - and are still growing. One of these was 121+ ft. tall by 1998. Full height for this species is considered to be about 150 ft. As above posts indicate 200 ft. is exceptional for trees of any kind under eastern conditions - the fact that dawn redwood does not have a documented history of growing this tall should not remove it from consideration as a prime candidate for a quickly developing yet persistent landmark tree of significant height.

Here is a link that might be useful: Metasequoia glyptostroboides (dawn redwood) description

This post was edited by bboy on Thu, Jan 1, 15 at 14:52

In the documentary Climbing Redwood Giants, they said the reason they found that west coast redwoods could exceed the physical limits of gravity, was because they take so much of their water in from the fog, humidity, and dew that forms on their leaves, then push the water down, rather than up (against gravity). East coast trees do not have this luxury, so they typically get thicker, but height seems capped near 200ft. Maybe in 400-500 years a specimen could go higher, but none documented, that I am aware of.

Huh?
The reason no tree on Earth can get much higher than about 400' is because the suction required to lift water from the ground to that height. It has nothing to do with a requirement for high atmospheric moisture.* There are Sequoia sempervirens in the interior valleys of California that are over 100' high - irrigated of course. Those places have much higher yearly rates of evapotranspiration than the east coast. (and in fact, the suction to get the water high, mostly relies on evapotranspiration!)
The range of Sequoia semprevirens extends south of the San Francisco Bay to coastal areas that are definitely _not_ cool and foggy all year. During the late summer season in September and October, those trees no doubt coast by on ground water reserves or their innate drought tolerance.

* - it just so happens, obviously, that places with consistent enough rainfall for the reliable ground water required to keep a redwood alive w/o irrigation are _also_ going to have moderate to high atmospheric moisture for most of the year. In the so called redwood belt; yes, fog is captured, you could say converted to rainfall, by the redwoods. But that happens anywhere trees are grown in an area with fogs, like the Ascension Island areas that have been "terraformed". They don't have a requirement for such fogs.

"Koch, G.W., Sillett, S.C., Jennings, G.M., and Davis, S.D. 2004. The limits to tree height. Nature 428: 851�"854."

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Thu, Jan 1, 15 at 17:28

I think we agree on the fact that suction (aka gravity) is the reason why trees generally do not exceed 200ft. Where we disagree is on the importance of fog in the "redwood belt". This is not a trivial detail, it is the key factor which allows the Redwood tree to get to heights of 400ft. They have developed a method of not only pooling water and using it, but actually storing up to 5x the amount they need. It's also clear, that this ability is much stronger at the apex of the tree, where it needs this special adaptation.

You can put a redwood on an irrigation system in another part of the world, but you cannot replicate the environmental factors that allow it to reach 400 feet on it's home turf. Again, it comes down to gravity. Without this adaptation to extract and store water from the atmosphere, the redwood could never come close to the heights it achieves.

Redwood leaves can absorb moisture from the fog, according to prior work, but questions remained over where the water goes. Is it immediately used for photosynthesis, or can the tree squirrel it away? To find out, the researchers collected leaves at different heights along redwood trees. They then soaked each leaf with water before placing it in a pressure chamber to see how much water could be slowly squeezed out. Pinnacle leaves held onto their water better than those closer to the base. The crucial difference was the xylem (red-stained core in leaf cross-sections). This water conduit inhabits more space in lower leaves (left panel, 28 m high), but becomes thinner toward the treeâÂÂs apex.

In contrast, water-storing âÂÂtransfusion tissueâ (stained blue) bulks up in the upper reaches (right panel, 104 m high), allowing these leaves to hold up to five times more water than they could use in a single day. This ability to sap and store air moisture may contribute to why redwoods surveyed in foggier northern California grow up to 30 m taller than those in the drier south.

Here is a link that might be useful: ScienceShot: How Do Redwoods Grow So Tall?

And from wiki:

The height of S. sempervirens is closely tied to fog availability, as taller trees become less frequent as fog becomes less frequent.[14] As S. sempervirensâ height increases, transporting water via water potential to the leaves becomes increasingly more difficult due to gravity.[15][16][17] Despite the high rainfall that the region receives (up to 100 cm), the leaves in the upper canopy are stressed for water.[18][19] The water stress is believed to cause the morphological changes in the leaves, stimulating reduced leaf length and increased leaf succulence.[16][20] Water stress is reduced in the upper canopy by the leaving taking in fog from the surrounding air thought the epidermal tissue, bypassing the xylem.[21][22] The uptake of water through the leaves causes the xylem flow to reverse, which repairs and reduces the severity of cavitations.[23]

Here is a link that might be useful: Wiki Sequoia sempervirens

One study showed about 6% of the water in the leaves were from fog in some trees.

I would estimate this stress caused by embolisms (cavitations) is likely not reached until the tree gets up around 250 to 275 feet or higher. A study has estimated 130 meters, or 427 feet is about the limit in trees if conditions were perfect for a long enough time.

I think heights over 200 feet are not hard for trees. It's just a matter of perfect shelter from wind and lightning, good soil, high soil moisture, and enough time.

There has to be good shelter, humidity, rain, and soil for very tall growth ie. 250-300+ feet (many areas already have good humidity). It's very humid and foggy in many parts of the eastern U.S as well.
Times of very high humidity/Fog mainly just gives the tree a little edge or aid for continued photosynthesis and growth as it gets into those extreme heights over 300 feet or so because the leaf stomata can remain open longer. Gravity induced embolisms cause cell stress and the leaf stomata will close, thus photosynthesis/growth is stopped unless the atmosphere is moist again. Even with fog or very high humidity, the growth at this height will still always be strongly slowed and stunted because of gravity.


As I mentioned earlier the tallest tree in the eastern U.S. confirmed is a Tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera) which is over 192 feet tall.
Before Hurricane Opal broke the top in October 1995, Pinus strobus was the eastern U.S. tallest at 207 ft.
I'm sure historically, eastern U.S trees grew over 220 feet or more. I believe the main limit in the eastern U.S would have been the more wild and variable severe weather conditions as many have already noted.

There is also broad leaf trees over 300 feet. The tallest Eucalyptus regnans known is at about 330 feet tall.

This post was edited by treeguy123 on Fri, Jan 2, 15 at 4:44

As an engineer, I know water can't be "sucked" up by vacuum more than 30' (30' water-pressure is equivalent to 14.7 psi). So water moving up trees is by the "wick" effect. Plus the cells transporting it act a bit like check-valves -- water can wick upward but not fall back as easily.

I think I've read that in some of the best RW groves in northern Cali, ample groundwater, especially ample moving groundwater, exists at the sites, often being maintained by meltwater from higher up. Moving water, albeit even if the slope is very gentle, seems to be a factor in these sites, as is also considered a favorable factor for at least one other conifer that I'm aware of-Thuja occidentalis-which, like the redwood, is often able to form more or less pure stands.

Cohesion-tension theory is the most well founded explanation for upward movement of sap. There maybe more intricate details for helping the movement upward, but gravity and friction within the tiny xylem tubes all limit the volume of sap that can be obtained at extreme heights. It's obvious that the tops of the tallest Redwood trees are stressed and very slow growing. See figure 2 in the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: The limits to tree height

This post was edited by treeguy123 on Fri, Jan 2, 15 at 16:56

Here is another interesting article put out spring 2014:

Here is a link that might be useful: Links between tree heights and different climates.

This post was edited by treeguy123 on Fri, Jan 2, 15 at 17:26

"One study showed about 6% of the water in the leaves were from fog in some trees. "

Right, so the notion that they "need" this source of moisture is romanticized pseudoscience. Just because something happens, doesn't mean that this is the cause of everything else that happens. If they could merely subsist on the fog, then why haven't they reached 600', 700', or 800'? In fact since their range goes up to 2500', the right magical fog clearly exists at that altitude, too, and trees at ground level should be able to reach 2800' at least! LOL.

Any moisture loving plant can grow better, or faster in a moist climate. Duh on that. But to specifically say that these trees can only reach that height because the fog is the _only _reason they can reach that height, is the height of absurdity! If you plotted standard deviations of soil moisture and drought with tree heights around the world - guess what you'd find? The places with plentiful, consistent soil moisture and rainfall are going to have the taller trees...and the places without tropical storms the really tallest trees. The sugi of Japan top out a bit above 200' - as would the redwoods of California if they had monsoon thunderstorms and typhoons to deal with.
And guess what happens in climates with very consistant moisture that don't have the tropical waves and ridging/troughing - well they are maritime climates and by definition will have fog. The fog is associative, not causative, for the tall redwood trees. The only competition is Eucalyptus regnans, which, guess what, comes from moderately elevated areas with consistent rainfall and atmospheric moisture. (my brief google research suggests Tasmania is not known for thick summer fogs, but it is certainly wet, and w/o California's summer dry season. In fact, its native range _doesn't_ include the NW coast which is probably the foggiest part of Tasmania.) And guess what their upper limit is in spite of being morphologically completely different from conifers? About 400 ft!

The fact is you won't find many other places in the world that have soil moisture as consistent as redwood coast, and the right temperature parameters, and the right absence of storms, lightning and high winds. But if you did, they could also reach 400' there.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Fri, Jan 2, 15 at 23:59

"as taller trees become less frequent as fog becomes less frequent."

As fog becomes less frequent, the standard deviation of ground moisture will increase. That's why the large redwoods will become less numerous. As it is, the coastal strip of northern California is essentially "drought proof", because, over the long run, no matter how dire the synoptic rainfall pattern is - a complete absence of pineapple expresses one winter, which is incredibly unlikely anyhow - the cold California currents means some fog will appear reliably in the dry season, and be collected and protect the ground from drying. Sure, a small amount could be directly absorbed. But the vast majority of the water comes from the ground, as do, obviously, ALL of the non-N nutrients.
Oh I nearly forgot..this almost means forest fires are incredibly unlikely in the coastal belt, too.
The top of the tallest redwood isn't albino because "jeez, the plant couldn't get enough magnesium and copper up there to create chlorophyll."

EDIT - btw, I had not seen the UWisc article when I posted this, will read it tomorrow.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Sat, Jan 3, 15 at 0:10

As I know the first Cupressocyparis x crossings are reached 60 m in England in about 100 years. Not so rush like Pinus radiata, but they still grow.
Zsolt
conifertreasury.org

>forest fires are incredibly unlikely in the coastal belt Fire is the principal damaging agent in both young-growth and old-growth stands. The above-ground portions of young stands may be killed outright by a single ground fire, but the stands sprout and reoccupy the site. Fires are especially damaging to trees less than 20 years old because their thin bark does not protect them. Also, more flammable litter lies on the ground, and the microclimate is drier than under old-growth forest.

Old-growth redwood stands show evidence of three or more severe fires each century (23,44). In many instances, fires may only reduce the thickness of the protective bark, which may be more than 30 cm (12 in) thick. In other instances, fires cause basal wounds through which heart rots enter. The combination of recurring fires and advancing decay produces large basal cavities called "goose pens." In extreme instances, mature trees may be so weakened mechanically that they fall.

In its northern range, in and around Redwood National Park, CA, fire has a moderate ecological role in redwood stands. Light ground fires that do not open the canopy favor western hemlock regeneration but usually eliminate older hemlock from the stand. Douglas-fir establishment is infrequent and unsuccessful under a full overstory canopy, even following light ground fires on mesic sites. Relatively hot fires appear essential for the establishment of Douglas-fir trees in discrete age classes. Redwood, grand fir, and tanoak maintain their status in redwood stands with and without the influence of fire (47,48).

Frequency distributions of fires indicate a natural pattern of several short intervals between fires followed by one or more long interval. This suggests that prescribed burning to maintain ecosystems should also be done on a short-short-long interval pattern (23).

Here is a link that might be useful: Sequoia sempervirens (D. Don) Endl.

This post was edited by bboy on Sat, Jan 3, 15 at 16:55

Thanks I appreciate the correction. I should have have said "severely damaging fires are incredibly unlikely". If they weren't there obviously wouldn't be so many redwood trees that are several hundred years old. These sound more like brush fires that move around among the forest floor. If they were happening in a setting that was tinder dry, they would finish the trees off.

As with Douglas firs in my area large redwoods in remaining mature stands frequently have fire scars. This is referred to in the second paragraph of the above excerpt. Nearly all of the American West has a marked summer dry season that is lacking in the East - Miami and Seattle have pretty much exactly opposite annual precipitation patterns. The map of fire danger levels in the United States that I found on the internet recently, believe was newly generated showed fire being likely (to varying degrees) most everywhere on the West (and East) coast except for around Seattle and Portland. Lowland Northern California is quite hot in summer (100's F.) except where the ocean is close enough to get a breeze off it. That is why there are afternoon fogs (the redwood lifeline) - the blazing heat immediately inland is drawing the moisture in from the ocean.

One of the things that has been noted about an outer coastal old growth stand of Thuja plicata in Washington (that has to be visited by boat) is that there is effectively no fire history on the site - this being remarkable for the region. Except for such places with hyper-maritime climates the tiny percentage of surviving jumbo native conifer specimens here is often located on river terraces or beside streams, where in addition to providing moist and fertile soils these locations may confer some degree of protection from fires. Even so as I mentioned fire scars are often visible on the trunks of such examples.