Wellingtonia or Mammoth Tree
Latin Name : Sequoiadendron giganteum
The Wellingtonia forms a massive tree, as can clearly be seen in the image above. It is widely considered to be both the longest living and largest living thing on Earth. The oldest was calculated to be about 3200 years old. This image is of a tree in East Sussex. As the Wellingtonia wasn’t introduced into the UK until 1853, by those standards our trees are just babies !
It has quite distinctive foliage which more closely resembles that of Cryptomeria than of the Redwoods
This image is of an avenue of Wellingtonias in Cheshire
The Bark is of a particularly fascinating texture apon your first encounter with the tree. It has a deep spongy, flaky cork-like feel to it which you can ‘gently punch’, and which affords the tree protection against fire – and in the UK against frost too I suppose
