Here's a couple of pics I posted at Arbtalk today. Thought a couple of folks here might find this interesting. The upper canopy of El Viejo del Norte coast redwood: one that Van Pelt described in Forest Giants of the Pacific Coast. Will take the two photo halves, and place them back-to-back here in the first post. Mist frequently cloaks any view of this limb structure. Just happened to look up one day from the right angle when the air cleared.
The right side of the photos is over the center part of the main stem. The blue sky shows the extra giant leader on the left. The huge stubs are grown-over, like several feet thick. My guess is like 25 feet or more, for the length of the huge limb extending left with the fern mat on it. Even though I understand how an old tree can develop this kind of structure, it almost escapes my imagination. Its remarkable that these redwoods can grow, break, twist, resprout, break and grow like this for century after century after century.
This photo is of some growth in the bottom 1/3 of the tree, like 30 to 50 feet above the ground. The horn looking part is maybe 10 feet long, and live, not decayed. I used to think this was pretty big and bizarre. I don't really have eagle eyesight to see what's in the upper canopy and don't carry binoculars. So I sort of recreate when I get back from the redwoods by looking on the computer at zoom photos.
Another chunk from the same event. Amazing how the debris these redwoods shed in storms is often larger than entire size east coast forest trees.
Guess that debris from these falling on people would be like nature's version of us stepping on a ketchup pack on the ground.
There's redwood in Prairie Creek called Godwood Creek Giant. A huge lump of canopy soil and ferns fell out of it last spring. The heap reminded me of the dinosaur poop pile in Jurassic Park where the woman thrust her arm in. Really big.
