The largest tree in the world?

General Sherman is the name of the largest tree in the world. It is located in an amazing area in California – the place where many unique national parks are located. So, it will definitely be along the road of your national parks tour.

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Sequoia National park

In the wild nature of California among Sequoia National Forest and Kings Canyon National park, there lies a place which General Sherman tree calls home. Sequoia National park is reasonably called the land of giants. Giant trees, I mean. Here you may find not only the largest tree in the world but also its brothers: General Grant (it is located a bit further in the Kings Canyon National park) and President. If you remember all the photos on the web with tunnels carved through the fallen huge trees, these tunnels are here.

The park is in quite a mountainous area where at the peaks it reaches 13000 ft (4000 m). This is the best altitude for the magnificent sequoia trees. I visited this park at the end of May. At that time we had already short-sleeved apparel at the seal level. But you can see from the photos that at the higher altitude there still was quite a deep winter. Also, when we arrived, it was just the beginning of the period when cars without tire chains are allowed to the park – lucky us. But still, some of the roads were closed due to extreme conditions. Though my friend traveled already in June, and there was no more snow. So think thoroughly about the best time to travel, or just pick the right apparel. You may find more information and recommendations on the official Sequoia National park website.

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The largest tree in the world and its history

It is important to describe in what aspects General Sherman is the largest tree in the world. As you know it is not the tallest tree and not the widest, but what is meant by ‘largest’? Total volume. It is the largest currently living single-stem tree. Though it is the largest currently, not historically. It is known that at least two trees were larger in volume than General Sherman. These trees have fallen in 1905 and 1940.

General Sherman tree is up to 2700 years old. Its current height is 83.8 meters (275 ft) and a diameter of 7.7 m (25 ft) brings to the total volume of 1,487 m3. Really massive, yea? Here you may see the top 5 of the largest trees in the world.

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Rank	Name	Location	Height	Circumference	Diameter	Volume
1	General Sherman	Giant Forest Grove	83.8 m (274.9 ft)	31.3 m (102.6 ft)	10.0 m (32.7 ft)	1,486.9 m3
2	General Grant	General Grant Grove	81.7 m (268.1 ft)	32.8 m (107.5 ft)	10.4 m (34.2 ft)	1,319.8 m3
3	President	Giant Forest Grove	73.4 m (240.9 ft)	28.3 m (93.0 ft)	9.0 m (29.6 ft)	1,278.4 m3
4	Lincoln	Giant Forest Grove	78.0 m (255.8 ft)	30.0 m (98.3 ft)	9.5 m (31.3 ft)	1,259.3 m3
5	Stagg	Alder Creek Grove	74.1 m (243.0 ft)	33.2 m (109.0 ft)	10.6 m (34.7 ft)	1,205.1 m3

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Interesting facts

When you will be traveling through the Sequoia National park, and some other parks, you will see large fields affected by wildfire. Yes, fires occur quite often in the National parks. Though they are not too dangerous to the sequoia trees and this is really interesting.

The bark of mature sequoia is quite fire-resistant, but the fire is fatal for seedlings and young trees. On the other hand, fire is one of the conditions for sequoia cones to open and reproduce. Nearly all of the larger trees have fire scars, many of which cover a large area of the base of the tree. But there is one more threat which is also usual and limits the growth of the trees. It’s lightning strikes. As the trees are at a high altitude and they are tall on their own, the lightning quite often strikes one or few trees per season. This does not kill the tree, but decreases its crown, and makes the tree more vulnerable.

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For more details on how to find and what to do in Sequoia National park please visit the official Sequoia National park website.

Related post – Visit The Grand Canyon – make the most of your visit