Climbing Redwoods 44 min Video: Superb

mdvaden wrote:

Those are some pretty good pics. The branch collar areas are generally pretty cool looking on that species. Liked that cone photo with the lichens. I don't think I've seen a cone photo with lichens posted on flickr before.

I was equally intrigued, the sequoias have a quite an age range of cones attached to the branches. I brought some cones from the ground home, several opened up and dropped their seeds.

Here's some excellent info on the sequoia life history apparently cones can be held on the tree for as long as 22 years. They can stay in the "green" state for many years. When they transition to the brown phase they drop seeds. An interesting hard dark/shiny material fell out of my cones when they dropped their seeds. John Muir made ink from this material which has apparently lasted on paper more than 60 years.
-moss

Here's the table of contents for the paper on Giant Sequoia life history and ecology
-moss