Sequoias and Snow Plants
onIf you have read my recent blog posts, you can see a plant identification-theme forming. I promise it won’t be forever but today I have one more to throw at you. This time I will take you to the giant …
Warming Redwood Weather
onWendy Baxter and Anthony Ambrose from Todd Dawson’s Laboratory at U.C. Berkeley have been tracking weather in the League’s Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative research plots in the coast redwood and giant sequoias forests. Check out their latest weather report …
Restoring Mariposa Grove
onThe towering giant sequoias of Yosemite National Park are the iconic trees that catalyzed our Nation’s conservation movement, inspiring Congress in 1864 to designate both the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley “for public use, resort, and recreation”. Today, these mammoth …
Entre Los Gigantes
onQué maravilla— ¿cómo es que estos gigantes existen? ¿Qué cuentos han de saber y cuantas historias han de conocer? ¿Qué me dirían a este momento? Recalling one of my most memorable experiences among the redwoods at Jedediah Smith Redwoods State …
Redwood Weather
onRCCI researcher Wendy Baxter describes below why we are tracking weather in the woods: Monitoring the local weather and long-term climate is an integral part of the Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative (RCCI). Beginning in 2011, scientists from UC …
Happy Anniversary to Our State Tree
onToday marks the anniversary of the adoption of the coast redwood as California’s state tree. In my opinion, no tree could better represent the golden state. For a little history on state symbols you have to go back to the …
A giant step for understanding redwood tree rings
onToday, Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative scientist, Allyson Carroll, shares her perspective on how she decodes the history of redwoods from tree rings. Imagine finishing a massive puzzle, one involving nearly half a million pieces and taking years to complete… it feels …
Love in a Redwood Forest
onIt’s no surprise the redwoods inspire people in many different ways. The biodiversity of plants and animals inspires scientists, the towering red-hued trunks of the trees inspire artists, and the fallen logs and clear creeks inspire an adventurous spirit in …
Stories from Calaveras Big Trees
onI was at Calaveras Big Trees State Park over the weekend for an event celebrating the grand opening of the new visitor center and commemorating the 150th anniversary of California State Parks. I was there to speak at the event, …
War, the White House and Redwoods Conservation
onThe roots of redwoods conservation extend back more than 150 years, all the way to President Abraham Lincoln. In 1864, in the midst of the Civil War, Lincoln signed The Yosemite Valley Grant Act that transferred federal lands in the …
View California’s Drought from Space
onThe last 12 months in California have been the driest on record since weather records began in 1885. NASA’s Earth Observatory recently showed us just how seriously the drought is impacting Californian vegetation statewide from the redwood forest to grassy …
Editor’s Notes: The Family Guide to the Giant Sequoias
onFor almost a year now we’ve worked on developing and producing the first-ever family guide to the redwoods. Initially we were going to produce a single edition, but after the writing and editing were underway, we soon realized that we …
A Redwood of a Blog: How the Giant Trees Grow
onRCCI’s nursery experiments and tree ring analyses are essential to understanding the past and future of the redwood forest, but it is the trees themselves that tell us about its present. By establishing 16 large plots in old-growth forests throughout …
The Seedling-Drought Experiment and Its Surprising Result
onLast week, I spent some time wondering broadly about our recent RCCI results, and just whether we could say for certain that 1) climate change is spurring an increase in redwood growth, and 2) if that change is “good” for …
Climate Change Discoveries Make Media Splash
onYou may have heard about the surprising discoveries of the League’s Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative (RCCI) program, which drew unprecedented media coverage yesterday. Did you see the coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, the …
Setting Fire to the Forest
onWe’ll do all the law’s allowin’/Tomorrow I’ll be right back plowin’/ settin’ the woods on fire —Hank Williams In a recent post, I discussed the role of natural disturbance in creating the forests we see today. This week, I’d like …
Finding Patterns in the Redwoods: It’s Easy as 1, 1, 2, 3…
onNature’s patterns are everywhere. Sometimes they’re obvious – we mammals, for instance, almost always have five fingers and five toes on each hand and foot. Sometimes these patterns aren’t nearly so apparent, but they’re still there nonetheless. The Fibonacci sequence …
You Have a Chance to Speak for the Trees
onThere’s a lot of buzz in the news today about the proposed restoration of the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias in Yosemite National Park, including a front page article in the San Francisco Chronicle by Peter Fimrite.
“Success”
onThat was Saturday’s word of the day, according to our guide, National Park Ranger Dick Ewart. Dick led a group of 15 of us on a hike through the lower Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias in Yosemite National Park. He …
Grove Protected by Lincoln Offers Historical Perspective
onNext week will be my second visit in eight months to the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias in Yosemite National Park. That makes me a lucky guy. My wife Joanne and I visited the Grove in May, while our traveling …