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In its native Sierra Nevada the giant redwood (also known as Wellingtonia) reaches a height of 80 metres and can live for 3000 years. Giant redwoods weighing 2000 tonnes are not unknown.
This deep-rooting evergreen with its thick spongy red-brown bark, has been planted in Britain since 1853. Tree-creepers make good use of the sockets left as lower branches fall off.
The overlapping, sharp-pointed foliage is scale-like and quite different from that of the Coast Redwood.
Get to know much more about trees, their evolution and structure and their relationships with fungi - including identification guides to the broadleaf and coniferous trees of Britain and Ireland plus more than 400 weird and wonderful fungi that interact with trees - in Pat O'Reilly's acclaimed new 450-page book Fascinated by Fungi
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