Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens): what the agencies record

This page reports what US federal publications say about one tree. It does not identify trees from descriptions or photos and does not say what should be done with any tree. The family overview, tree species in the agency records, explains the sources and holds the comparison table.

At a glance

Item	What the source records
Scientific name	Sequoia sempervirens (D. Don) Endl., listed in Silvics under the redwood family
Other names	Coast redwood and California redwood (Silvics); the Wood Handbook adds sequoia
Native status, USDA PLANTS	Native in the lower 48 states; the profile lists no native status in Canada
Tallest measured, Silvics	112.1 m (367.8 ft), measured in 1964
Green weight of the wood, NRS-38	50 lb per cubic foot, without bark

Native range

The Silvics of North America handbook (Agriculture Handbook 654, volume 1, 1990) says redwood is native to the coast of central and northern California, where winters bring moderate to heavy rain and summers bring fog. The range runs south from two groves on the Chetco River in the extreme southwest corner of Oregon (latitude 42 degrees 09 minutes N) to Salmon Creek Canyon in the Santa Lucia Mountains of southern Monterey County, California (latitude 35 degrees 41 minutes N). The handbook describes it as an irregular coastal strip about 724 km (450 mi) long and generally 8 to 56 km (5 to 35 mi) wide. It says old-growth redwood, much of it in state and national parks, occupies less than 80 940 ha (200,000 acres). The handbook names two close relatives in the same family, the giant sequoia of the Sierra Nevada and the baldcypress of the southeastern states.

Size and age

Silvics says redwood is the tallest tree species in the world, and only the giant sequoia is bulkier. The oldest redwood Silvics records, by growth ring counts, is nearly 2,200 years old. The handbook says the average redwood is smaller than commonly believed: on a 12 ha (30 acre) old-growth tract in Humboldt County, California, half of the trees larger than 30 cm (12 in) in diameter were 30 to 77 cm (12 to 30 in), and 18 percent were 155 cm (61 in) or larger. Redwoods more than 61 m (200 ft) tall are common, and many on riverside benches with deep moist soils are taller than 91 m (300 ft). It adds that redwoods are sexually mature at 10 years or less but keep increasing in volume for centuries.

Cones, roots and bark

Silvics says redwood is monoecious, with inconspicuous male and female flowers borne separately on different branches of the same tree. Pollen sheds between late November and early March, and the cones are 13 to 29 mm (0.5 to 1.1 in) long and mature in autumn of the first year after flowering. The handbook says redwoods have no taproots but large, wide-spreading lateral roots, that small trees have better-than-average windfirmness, and that large redwoods are windfirm under most conditions. In a study in extreme northwestern California it found that wet soil combined with strong winds was needed for significant windfall, and that uprooting accounted for 80 percent of the windfall. It calls the bark extremely tough and fibrous, and says it may be more than 30 cm (12 in) thick.

Wood

The Wood Handbook (FPL-GTR-282, 2021) says the heartwood of redwood varies from light cherry red to dark mahogany and the narrow sapwood is almost white. Typical old-growth redwood is moderately lightweight, moderately strong and stiff and moderately hard, easy to work, generally straight grained, and shrinks and swells comparatively little. It says heartwood from old-growth trees has high decay resistance and heartwood from second-growth trees generally has low to moderate decay resistance. Production of redwood lumber is limited to California, and most of the lumber is used for building and remanufactured into siding, sashes, doors, millwork and containers. Silvics adds that burls, found on any part of the trunk, are cut for table tops, veneers and turned products.

Wood Handbook figure	Green	At 12% moisture content
Specific gravity, old-growth (Table 5-3b)	0.38	0.40
Specific gravity, young-growth (Table 5-3b)	0.34	0.35
Modulus of rupture, old-growth, lbf per square inch (Table 5-3b)	7,500	10,000
Modulus of rupture, young-growth, lbf per square inch (Table 5-3b)	5,900	7,900
Side hardness, old-growth, lbf (Table 5-3b)	410	480
Side hardness, young-growth, lbf (Table 5-3b)	350	420
Moisture content of green wood, old-growth, percent (Table 4-1)	86 heartwood, 210 sapwood	Not applicable

The green weight of the wood is in the NRS-38 table, the same figure used in the log weight calculator.

Damaging agents the handbook names

Silvics (1990) names fire as the principal damaging agent in both young-growth and old-growth stands.

Fire. It says the above-ground parts of young stands may be killed by a single ground fire while the stands sprout and reoccupy the site, and that fires are especially damaging to trees under 20 years old because their bark is thin. In other cases it says fire only thins the protective bark, or causes basal wounds through which heart rots enter. Recurring fire and advancing decay produce large basal cavities it calls "goose pens", and in extreme cases mature trees may be weakened mechanically so that they fall.
Heart rots. The handbook says redwood has no tree-killing diseases other than seedling diseases, but heart rots cause extensive cull. It names a brown cubical rot caused by Poria sequoiae as the most common in the southern range, and a white ring rot caused by P. albipellucida as most significant farther north.
Canker. A twig and branch canker (Coryneum species) seen on sprouts and on seedling and sapling plantation trees, which girdles stems and branches and which it says could become damaging in plantations.
Insects. Several are found on redwood but, the handbook says, none cause significant damage: a flatheaded twig borer and girdler (Anthaxia aeneogaster), two redwood bark beetles (Phloeosinus sequoiae and P. cristatus) and the sequoia pitch moth.
Animals. Bark stripping by the American black bear has caused serious damage in some parts of the redwood region, mostly on trees 10 to 30 years old, and woodrats often injure planted trees on cutover land.
Fasciation. A flattening of the normally cylindrical stem that the handbook says is seen in a few instances and whose cause is mostly unknown.

The guide on reporting a pest in the United States gives the office that takes sightings of regulated pests, and pests and diseases by country sets out which ones agencies regulate. Who may apply pesticides is in pesticide licences by country.