Growth Rings

[bob vaughan]

I was working with some redwood and was appreciating the old growth, tight grained stuff and thought I'd share a photo for general amusement and interest.
The thickness sample was .917. Naturally, the penny is 3/4" diameter. I'd estimate this piece had roughly fifty rings per inch. That's a lot. Won't find that on big box spongewood 2x4s.
That particular redwood tree grew 2" diameter in fifty years. That's slow.
I'll often check out the growth rings and observe when the tree had good and bad years. A few of the redwood rings on the sample shown reflected really bad years with almost no growth.

 

[chris_goris]

Pretty amazing Bob! thanks for sharing, you say 2" diameter growth is low but imagine the resources that tree had to suck up to cover 2" across its entire exterior!!! No telling how tall it was!

 

[bob vaughan]

Those old redwoods and also the Douglas firs were truly amazing.
The neat thing about redwoods is that before the cone (seed) can germinate, it has to be burned by a forest fire. Smokey the Bear was not their friend
I've heard that the redwood forests are eerily quiet since the wood is so insect and rot resistant. No food chain for the critters.

 

[Oka]

Bob, Kinda quiet, but the other thing is redwood forests forest floor plant all have to like acidic soils. The redwood forest floor is mostly sword ferns and some brush rhododendrons a sorrel of some kind, huckleberry and some other trees. doug fir, madrone, tan oak , spruce and some other trees. Beautiful

 

[Steve Martin]

I believe that the seeds of the Long Leaf Pine, native to North Carolina and the southeastern US coastal plain, also need to be heated in a forest fire before they can germinate.