Emily Carr, Deep in the ForestThe fall of Telperion [a redwood around 360 feet tall] had created a swath of devastation in the forest. Telperion was nearly as large as the Dyerville Giant. It had smashed a smaller redwood to pieces when it fell, creating a debris field that extended in all directions. The root mass of Telperion extended about thirty feet into the air. Its prone trunk was sixteen feet in diameter -- almost three times the height of their heads as they looked up at it. Shattered branches and small exploded trees and great chunks and splinters of redwood had been flung around the hulk of the tree. Blobs of soil ranging in size from baseballs to basketballs had been thrown up to thirty yards when Telperion smacked into the ground.but the descriptions of the life cycles and “behaviours” of giant redwoods, sequoias and Douglas firs are equally spellbinding.
“The mud splash when Telperion hit the ground must have been simply awesome,” [canopy scientist Steve] Sillett said to me. “We could see the splash mark way up on the trunks of the trees all around.” The trunks surrounding the detonation zone were coated with soil sixty feet above the ground, like a bathtub ring.
For example, Preston and Steve Sillett climb an adjacent tree to get to the top of Kronos, another 360-foot redwood:
We dropped down into a maze of standing trunks of all sizes. It was an aerial grove of redwoods that rise out of a buttressed platform extending from the side of Kronos, the largest trunk complex growing from a limb that has yet been identified on a redwood. It was the Great Kronos Complex, otherwise known as Kronos Wood. It had twenty-two trunks in it, springing out of a huge mass that grew sideways from the tree’s main trunk. The platform extended for sixty feet out of the side of Kronos. The bigger “trees” in Kronos Wood were between eighty and a hundred feet tall and up to a yard and a half across at their bases.Who knew??
Nearby, in the same grove:
Rhea had a double top, with twin trunks, and there was a garden between them. Rhea Garden was a deep pocket of soil that had become established near the top of the tree. The pocket was filled with plants, mosses and lichens. It was like a tiny Japanese garden, and it was probably as old as the Muromachi tea gardens of Kyoto. It was built up of layers of earth that had drifted into the tree.The descriptions of climbing techniques and of the people who climb these trees and study them are also interesting, but the way Preston presents the real-life redwood experts is a bit off-putting. He seems desperate to make his book dramatic – as if the science about these amazing trees would not be enough to make the book interesting. He provides too much weird detail about the biologists’ and daredevils’ lives, and doles it out in small vignettes that are held breathlessly suspended while we go through a round of tree observation. It’s forced and creaky. The tree lovers’ lives are only mildly interesting beyond their obsessions with giant trees. (This desperate dressing-up is foreshadowed in the title, I suppose: “A Story of Passion and Daring” = “Far More Exciting Than It Might Sound.”)
Preston also “steals” all the climbers’ best stories and tells them in the third person, as if he were there.
There are some amazing climbing stories, though. One of them made my blood freeze in my veins.
3 comments:
You added "Who knew??" Maybe regarding Kronos limb structure. Actually, it's available to see a lot of it from the ground, and even more with a zoom lense without even climbing.
You hit the nail on the head about Preston's writing. He's after a bit of the shock and awe effect. And I suspect he used the knowledge and abilities of others in this scenario, to elevate himself as an expert speaker on the subject.
Now, I think it's a great read, and would read it again, but actually going to those groves, really let a lot of wind out of Preston's writing sails for me.
Yes -- I've been to a lot of the trees. See my page:
Grove of Titans and Atlas Grove
And, Preston is incorrect, there are more than just a handful of botanists that know the location of the large trees. Still few - but not a "handful" of botanists.
The trees are magnificent though, even though he stretched truth to the limits about hard it is to reach them.
My main dissapointment with the book, was lack of any color image inside the cover. So that's half the reason for the web page I assembled. Many reviews I read expressed the same desire to see much more, and the research climbers have been exceptionally stingy with photos showing views of the trees. If you enjoy the photos, pass the page along to friends. It's new page on the internet, and will take a while to propagate on th web.
Hey, I'm watching some debris that fell from one Titan, which is on the ground and sprouting, and may become a genetic clone, naturally propagated. Referred to on the page and video. But I find it interesting to keep track of.
Cheers,
M. D. Vaden of Oregon
M.D. Vaden, thank you for posting the link to your page. I really enjoyed it and will go back to follow up on the many resources you listed. And I will certainly pass it on to friends.
I was blown away by Preston's book, but I am a complete layperson when it comes to tree botany -- I knew of course that redwoods are the tallest and widest trees on earth, but I assumed they were like other trees, basically isolated columns tapering to a point at the top and carrying secondary branches. I had no idea there were tree behaviours like these -- the sideways maneuvering of branches as big as the tree that holds them up, the upper-storey groves, the forking and re-joining a single plant can do, and the grafting onto one another and themselves that goes on.
How normal is this as tree behaviour??
I agree that Preston's book was skimpy on photos, but videos like yours provide a better idea of what these vast trees are like than photos can, I think. Thanks for posting those!
Other than the enormous size of the things that redwoods do, and the small amount of species exclusive to their canopies, much of what they do occurs on smaller redwoods and other trees.
Old apple trees can get ferns on them. So with bigleaf maples.
Many trees get lichens.
Actually, even house rain gutters can grow "bonsai" trees for a lack of better words. I see birch trees sprouting in moist gutters dirty with leaves and wetness almost weekly in the spring time. Wherever they can get water and something to anchor on.
Redwoods have an advantage to accumulate the oddities more due to rot resistance -- so typically more examples.
The grafting fusing occurs on a bunch of stuff. I've seen a lot of Japanese maples fuse, and just happened to photograph a natural branch graft on a mid-size corkscrew willow just yesterday around noon.
natural graft: corkscrew willow
Most trees will reiterate. Cut any apple's top off, and what do we get? Watersprout suckers. Those are those "fractal" reiterations?
Really, a redwood tour in these groves would be supercharged by a guide who could really explain this tree growth stuff so people understand both trees and redwoods at the same time. Understanding trees in general, and getting the most out of a redwood tour.
I'd advertise tours, but I think permits are limited in those areas to a few guide services. I would basically just be able to do unofficial under the table "ninja" guide tours - LOL.
Oh -- that reiteration thing is a chemical trigger when the tops break. The tops are chemical factories that send down a chemical that "tells" the subordinate buds to chill-out and remain in lower management positions. Oddly, it's almost corporate. The same thing happens if a tree leans over. The limbs become unregulated and take over as leaders.
reiteration
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