Coast Redwoods

Coast redwood forests are probably the best known forest community in California. Coast redwood forests were once wide-spread but are now relicts, restricted to a narrow belt from southern Oregon to Monterey County. Rising from massive trunks, they are the tallest trees in the world, some more than 300 feet tall. Coast redwoods have thick, reddish bark and two types of needle-like leaves. Those leaves found on the outermost twigs are of unequal length, occurring in two rows, wheras those of the central portion of the branch are short and scale-like. Despite their size, redwoods have an unusually shallow root system that makes them vulnerable to toppling over if the soil becomes overly wet for long periods.

Redwoods are remarkably fire-tolerant and long-lived; 500 years is an average life span, but some are more than 2,000 years old. An unusual adaptation is the ability of redwoods to produce new shoots from roots, especially after fire damage. Root sprouting is common, and, in some cases, a perfect ring of clone trees may coalesce to from a natural enclosure around the parent tree. In this way, a single tree can be perpetuated more or less indefinitely.

Relatively few understory species are able to flourish in a mature redwood forest because of the extreme shade, wet soil, deep leaf litter, and redwood root competition. Trees such as California bay laurel, Umbellularia californica, and Douglas-fir are succesful short-term competitors where shade is not too severe, as is tanbark oak, Lithocarpus densiflorus, whose acorns provide food for many animals. Sword fern, Polystichum munitum, and five-finger fern, Adiantum pedatum, grow well it this environment and add to the primordial grandeur of the community. The shady redwood forest is brightened by clover-leaved, white- and pink-flowered redwood sorrel, Oxalis oregana; inside-out flower, Vancouveria parviflora; and brilliant rhododendrons, Rhododenron macrophyllum, in several shades of pink.