Drought and other stressors are tough on redwoods, but they can bounce back.
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Coast redwoods sometimes regenerate as seedlings but more often grow from sprouts, which start easily on lateral roots or from stumps or downed logs. Young redwoods grow quickly—two to six feet a year—so that a 20-year-old tree will often be 50 feet tall and about eight inches in diameter.
The gold rush brought hundreds of thousands of people to California, and the coast redwoods were logged extensively to satisfy the explosive demand for lumber. Now, approximately 5 percent of the old-growth coast redwood forest remains.
They Live for Thousands of YearsAlthough a redwoods' ability for a long lifespan contributed to its Latin name, Sequoia sempervirens—sempervirens means evergreen or everlasting” in Latin—most of the remaining redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains are “second-growth”, about 50-150 years old.
As the climate changes, scientists predict that the range and character of redwood forests in the Santa Cruz mountains will change too. Some areas that have redwoods today could become too hot and dry to support them in the future.
Approximately 300 trees will be planted in 2022, and 700 in both 2023 and 2024. Humboldt State University student volunteer Sara Bandali preps a seedling for planting. Photo by National Park Service.
Climate change, and its current and projected interactions with these stressors, jeopardizes the redwoods' ability to survive and thrive into the future.