California Institute of Technology

• Most of them grow from southern Oregon down into northern California, snugged up against the rugged Pacific coast.
• Redwoods, like all trees, are engineered marvels.
• They even have two kinds of leaves that help the trees adapt to both wet and dry conditions.
• Researchers and horticulturists at the botanical gardens are thinking about trees, and how to integrate them into larger landscapes, in new ways.

Redwood communities

• A structure or building typically is a sort of island unto itself, separate from its neighbors; in contrast, the coast redwood is an ecosystem with enormously broad consequences for other life forms.
• Some of these life forms rely on the tree; others on occupants in and around the tree.
• The coast redwood hosts so many different ecological interactions that it’s faintly ridiculous.
• Nestled into extensive mats of ferns that grow high up in redwood canopies, researchers find aquatic crustaceans called copepods that normally would live in larger bodies of water.

Enduring but not static

• Even species as enduring as coast redwoods are affected by climate change.
• New fire dangers put them at risk, and more frequent floods erode the big trees’ footing.
• Since these trees are so networked and interconnected, the sum is greater than its parts and isn’t easy to quantify.

New territory

• I’ve resisted giving names to this duo, although many giant redwoods have monikers like Adventure, Brutus, Nugget, Paradox and Atlas – most named by the scientists who first quantified their extreme heights.
• The redwoods outside my window are perhaps 100 feet tall – puny by comparison to their northern brethren.

Daniel Lewis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.