Young sequoias are able to grow successfully only in mineral soils in full sunlight, free from competing vegetation.
Like many pines, the seeds are generally liberated by fire but long dry high temperature can dry out a cone opening it up enough to release the seeds.
Dear all! I bow before those who will open the secrets of the redwoods. When you stand near the redwoods, you realize how durable life of these trees. People do not deserve such longevity.
Fire, or exposure to high temperature. Fire of course will also remove competing ground vegetation.
Thanks Jeffrey and Rainer, call it figuratively - the fire of life.
Its egg-sized cone can lie undisturbed on the forest floor for fifty years before surrendering its seeds. Ironically, the forest fires that destroy other trees are friends to the Sequoia. Its four-foot thick bark chemically repels the flames, and the fire’s heat opens the cone, to at last, release its seeds to take root.
http://www.wordkeepersinc.com/pdf/TheSequoiaSeed_SampleRead.pdf
Dear Krishnan! Thank you for the book. And that's what I understood. Sequoia is a kind of "Phoenix," which is reborn from the ashes. This is a wonderful reality. At the same time, it is a great allegory for people who do not have to lose heart in times of hardship. The revival will come.
The cones must dry in order to open. This occurs naturally when cone-bearing branches break off in a storm, when pine squirrels gnaw away the fleshy green cone exterior tissue, or when a cone-stalk boring insect severs the vascular connection between the cone and the branchlet bearing it. See my book "Conifers of California", Cachuma Press, 4th printing, 2013.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Zoology
- Invertebrate Zoology
- Arthropods
- Insects