Photos from open sources
The tallest and longest-living trees of our planet (their age reaches 4 thousand years or more) are redwoods of the North America.
Giant sequoias at first seemed like a pioneer fiction Of America
The Americans discovered them only in the 19th century, and the discoverers were not believed for a long time. So, in 1833. someone by surnames Leonard, traveling through the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, found a grove 100-meter trees, about which he wrote a book. His creation is nobody not interested, readers considered all of the above fiction the author.
A photo from open sources
Twenty years later, crowds rushed to these parts gold diggers. One of them, one Daud, chasing the wounded by him grizzly bear came across a solid wall of trees. It was a giant wooden fortress that nature raised. When he returned, the hunter told the rest of his astounding find. No wonder his comrades made fun of him.
And then Daoud decided to cheat and said that he had knocked down the grizzly the size of the whole house. Then everyone rushed into the forest, where they saw grove sequoia. Numb with amazement, people stood in front of the green giants and themselves seemed ants. Soon all america believed in the existence of super-giant trees, and everyone rushed in search of them.
American mockery of sequoias
A total of 72 groves were found, each tree in which found proper name, for example, Old Bachelor, Miner’s Cabin, Three Sisters … And the fallen sequoia with a hollow where I could freely enter horseman, received the name “Riding School”. Also available tree named after writer Mark Twain.
Artful businessmen bought up unique groves and began to let them go tourists for the money. And the truth is, where you could still see the tunnel, done in a tree trunk through which a horse-drawn carriage rides (so far this sequoia has already fallen)? Unfortunately similar tunnels and huge stumps appeared through the efforts of people who wanted show how big sequoias are to earn extra money.
A photo from open sources
The good thing is that green colossi are unusually tenacious: mutilate they can be, but it’s rather difficult to kill. So one day for some exhibition decided to cut down one of the highest copies sequoias – it didn’t work, because the saws were quickly dull. Then in powerful drill went into business. Five workers for almost a month leaked trunk from all sides, but even then the tree did not fall.
A photo from open sources
It collapsed only under the onslaught of a hurricane wind that fell upon riddled sequoia body. When it fell, the earth trembled, as in disaster time; tree trunk split into several parts, branches cut deep into the ground. Fallen sequoia never could be taken out of the forest. Nevertheless, the bark was stripped from her and from this San Francisco’s bark gathered a round room 7 meters high. They put a piano inside and arranged seats for forty viewers.
Alas, the mockery of sequoias did not end there. Lumberjack Trask got the idea to get rich at the expense of a tree, which is all called Mother of the Forest. The iron brackets that Trask drove into the trunk, he reached the top, and then removed the bark from the tree and sent her to London.
A photo from open sources
Having lost bark, trees usually die. Forest Mother contrary to all survived. Towering over the crowns of other trees, she looks as if reproached people with greed and unjustifiable cruelty. And now, after many years, the Americans are blushing with shame, Recalling the barbaric act of Trask.
Good, almost eternal, but not fertile sequoias
Unlike the crazy lumberjack and the like, sequoias are surprisingly kind and generous creatures. Known Case with a hunter named Smith. Once a man discovered a sequoia with huge hollow that formed during a forest fire. The hunter settled in this grotto and enjoyed his unusual housing.
A photo from open sources
But then one day a terrible hurricane hit the forest. Smith sat in its hollow like a frightened squirrel and trembled with fear. Somewhere near trees fell to the ground with a bang; scorched trunk of his sequoia also could not stand and, having collapsed, bury a person under him. But a mighty tree pulled out, for which a happy hunter was immensely grateful.
Interestingly, new sequoias are born very rarely. IN at the same time, no one has yet seen these trees they die, so to speak, of natural death. Giant trunks redwoods, now resting on the ground, fell not because the trees died of old age, but because they became victims of natural disasters.
Yes, compared to us, sequoias live very long; their age it can be much more than even the life of entire states. For example, in one of the museums in the USA a saw cut of such a tree is presented, on each of annual rings of which dates and corresponding events are indicated American history.
A photo from open sources
When the Vikings rooks came to the local shores, this sequoia is already stood. By the time of Christopher Columbus, she had become gigantic. Walked centuries, successive American presidents, and a striking tree continued to grow and probably not even guessed that someday people would pick up fallen him from the ground trunk, sawn into pieces and one of them put up for review in the museum …
Why people do not have respect for these fantastic sequoias?
And yet an amazing thing: the whole look of these amazing trees, their greatness and fantastic longevity should seemed to inspire people with reverent reverence, but those have long been with manic persistence tried to saw sequoias with electric saws, and in in case of failure – blow up with dynamite.
But the soft wood of these giants is only suitable for matches or pegs. However, the forest patriarchs were used in these purposes. Or let their millennial flesh go on souvenirs that so willingly bought up by tourists. Thinking about it, you involuntarily wonder question: what pushes a person to such monstrous deeds? Deep ignorance, absolute spiritual underdevelopment, primitive desire to somehow assert itself? ..
A photo from open sources
But back to the giant sequoias, which, you see, is much more pleasant. These trees have a relative, it’s sequoia evergreen, which Americans call mahogany. It less in girth and age is more modest (about three thousand years), but taller: 110 meters for these giants – not at all record.
… It’s hard to imagine a planet that would be more beautiful than our earth. In each of her creations, Nature is a model for us. absolute harmony and beauty. How do you want the answer to her divine generosity was not the madness of extermination, but ours gratitude, love and wise care for all living things.
Giants Time Money
