A GIANT AMONG THE BIG TREES

Author's Personal Collection

“When Theodore Roosevelt visited the Big Trees of the Santa Cruz mountains in California, he asked his friends and the guide to retire to a distance, that he might be alone with the Sequoia Sempervirens – the oldest living plant on the earth. They watched him as he lay prone on the ground, and with face to the sky, measured, with his soul, eight thousand years* of continuous life as it stretched away two hundred and seventy feet skyward. When he rejoined his friends there was a conversation about the eternal realities and vigors of life. He had faced the infinite from the altar rail of the finite.”

* The age of the Giant varies from just under 1,000 years to over 2,000. It is believed by some that the Giant sprouted from a seed though most of the big trees we see today in this grove sprang from the roots of existing trees. 

This begs the question: just how old are the root systems of these monarchs of the forest? Answers may come in the near future. In 2019, the genome of the coast redwood was successfully sequenced by scientists from the University of California–Davis and Johns Hopkins University in cooperation with the Save the Redwoods League. This new research reveals the complexity of the coast redwoods and perhaps one day will help reveal the true age of the entire redwood, from roots to tip. 

Source: “Sempervirens, A Christian Training School,” by Alexander C. Stevens, Woman’s Home Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, May 1920.