BIGTREE |
Trees containing | 100,000 | to | 120,000 | feet each | 2 |
Trees containing | 80,000 | to | 100,000 | feet each | 13 |
Trees containing | 60,000 | to | 80,000 | feet each | 49 |
Trees containing | 40,000 | to | 60,000 | feet each | 112 |
Trees containing | 20,000 | to | 40,000 | feet each | 251 |
Trees containing less than 20,000 feet each | 353 | ||||
“Little bigtrees” | 2,682 | ||||
Total | 3,462 |
Bigtree is distantly related to southern cypress, and the shapes of very old trees of both species bear some resemblance. Bigtree leaves do not fall annually as those of bald cypress do. They are from one-eighth to one-fourth of an inch long, and on the leading shoots they may be half an inch in length. Cones are from two to three and a half inches long, and they ripen their seeds the second year, but the empty cones may adhere to the branches several years. The seeds are a quarter of an inch long, and have wings sufficient to carry them a hundred yards or more. The trees bear abundance of seeds, in proportion to the small number of branches. Though shapely and well clothed with limbs when young, the crown contracts with age, and consists of a few enormous, crooked limbs, almost destitute of twigs and small branches. One of these trees may actually bear more twigs when the trunk is only a foot in diameter than will be on the same trunk when it is fifteen or twenty feet in diameter. The old tree trunks are often without limbs to a height of 100 or 150 feet.
The Douglas squirrel is the bigtree’s greatest enemy. In proportion to size, this little creature probably eats ten times as many tree seeds as the most ravenous hog that roams the forest. One of the first things that impresses a visitor in a grove of bigtrees is the rich brown of the bark of some of the trunks. All are not brown alike, or at all seasons. The trees on which the seed harvest is ready are the brownest, thanks to the sharp claws, the tireless energy, and keen appetite of the Douglas squirrel. He goes up and down the trunks for three square meals a day among the clusters of cone-bearing branches two hundred or three hundred feet above, and makes several extra trips for exercise; and at each scratch of his briery foot he kicks off scales of bark, until the whole trunk is “scratched raw.” The detached scales of bark accumulate in a
These are the heaviest trees in America, notwithstanding their wood is light. It weighs less than northern white cedar. The largest bigtree trunks weigh more than 2,000,000 pounds. In order to stand at all, they must stand plumb. It is a provision of nature that the old trees are almost branchless, otherwise the wind would force them out of plumb and they would go down. It has been claimed that the overthrow of one of these giants is always brought about by one of two causes. The development of larger limbs on one side than on another unbalances them; or the wash of gullies undermines the roots on one side, and draws the tree that way. It is currently believed that no bigtree ever dies from natural causes.
A good deal of pure fiction has been published regarding the size and age of the largest of these trees. They are old enough and large enough without drawing upon the imagination. The tree’s base is greatly enlarged, but tapers rapidly the first few feet. There is little doubt that some of the trunks are over forty feet in diameter, one foot above ground, but that is not a fair measurement. The point should be five or six feet at least. Measured thus, about twenty-five feet inside the bark would represent the largest. With the bark added, the diameter would be nearly thirty feet. Probably not one tree in fifty, taking them as they occur in the whole range and counting veterans only, is fifteen feet in diameter five feet from the ground.
There is also some extravagant guessing as to height. Too many tourists measure with the unaided eye, or accept a guidebook’s figures. An authentic height of 365 feet—the measurement of a fallen trunk—is probably the greatest. Very few reach three hundred feet. Many unreliable figures have been published concerning the age of bigtrees. One thing can be accepted without question; size is no proof of age, in comparing one tree with another; neither is the number of annual rings in a block cut from the side of a tree a reliable factor to determine age. The only sure way to determine the age of one of these trees is by counting all the rings from the pith to bark. Care should be taken not to count the same ring twice, as may be done when the wood is curly. John Muir counted 4,000 rings in a bigtree stump. It is believed that no higher age is backed by the evidence of yearly rings. It was twenty-four feet in diameter. The count of another of like size made it 2,200 years old; and of still another of the same size placed its age at 1,300 years. The Forest Service has made accurate measurement and record
The wood of bigtree is very light, soft, moderately strong, brittle, summerwood thin and dark rendering the rings of annual growth easily seen; the medullary rays are thin, numerous, and very obscure. The wood is light to dark red, the thin sapwood nearly white; it works easily, splits readily, and polishes well. It is very durable in contact with the soil. Trunks lie in the woods long periods before decay seriously attacks them; but forest fires hollow them, and finally burn them up. Enormous depressions are found in the forest where logs once lay, but which disappeared long ago, judging by the size of trees which have since grown in the depressions. The interior of some large trunks which have been worked up on sawmills showed the scars of forest fires centuries ago. The annual rings which covered one such scar showed that the burning took place 1,700 years ago.
Not much can be said for the commercial uses of bigtree. Many a species of insignificant size is much more useful. Considerable quantities have been cut by sawmills. The waste is great, heavy trunks crushing badly in fall. Logs are so large that many of them are split with gunpowder to facilitate handling them. Some of the wood has been exported for lead pencils; other has been used for fence posts, shingles, and grapevine stakes, while the soft bark has been worked into novelties.
Macnab Cypress (Cupressus macnabiana) is a California tree of limited range and little commercial value. It grows in Napa, Lake, Mendocino, and Trinity counties; is often little more than a branching shrub, but the largest specimens may be thirty feet high and fifteen inches in diameter. The wood is light, soft, and usually of slow growth. The medullary rays are numerous but thin, and the bands of summerwood are distinct. The cones are generally less than one inch long, and the seeds have narrow wings. The foliage is grayish which is due to white glands in the leaves. Forest foliage is fragrant. The tree is known as white cedar, Shasta cypress, and California mountain cypress.