General Sherman Tree
The General Sherman tree is located in Sequoia National Park in the U.S. This is the largest giant sequoia in the world, which is known to specialists. It grows in Sierra Nevada, California.
This giant tree, next to which people look like miniatures, is not only the largest giant sequoia in the world, this is the largest living creature on the planet - so it says on the sign in front of it. The giant sequoia is taller than 83 meters, but that does not make it the tallest tree in the world. It has a trunk circumference of over 24 meters and circumference of the crown is 33 meters. The lowest branch of the famous tree is located 40 meters from the ground.
In the nineteenth century the area in which the famous tree grows was called the giant forest, by researcher John Muir, who exclaimed that the forest is a giant when he hit a giant redwood. This name - Giant Forest - is preserved for this part of the park. The General Sherman Tree, which scares some people with its size, is likened by many tourists to a red-orange rock, whose top can not be seen. Every year this tree produces as much wood as would suffice for raising an eighteen meter tree.
Tourists who arrive in the park to see the General Sherman tree, always stand by its trunk, near which they seem very fragile and small.
It has long been believed that General Sherman tree is over three thousand years old, but recent studies have determined its age - it's exactly two thousand years old. That does not make it the oldest tree in the world.
The oldest tree was a 4484 years, a special kind of Californian pine that was cut in 1965. Years ago redwoods at over three thousand years of age were cut. It is believed that the planet still has trees of five thousand years age.
In the winter of 2006 General Sherman tree was deprived of a large branch of its crown. When the branch fell to the ground, it crushed the fence that is around the tree, and damaged the path that leads to the giant sequoia, which caused a number of repairs.
Specialists believe that the loss of the huge tree branch is a way to react against changing weather conditions on our planet. Even after the fall of this giant General Sherman tree branch, it has not lost its status as the largest tree on the planet.
According to calculations by specialists, General Sherman tree weighs over 1300 tons. Tourists from around the world arrive in Sequoia National Park, only to have the opportunity to see the General Sherman tree with their own eyes. It is named after Civil War hero Gen. William Sherman.
The tree is reached by a special trail on which people with disabilities who have special parking places nearby can reach it. The brick path has steps that show to what extent the root system of the largest living creature on our planet stretches.
The root system of the tree is huge and many people are attracted to the tree, which has witnessed great historical events and has seen the development of human civilization since the beginning of the new era. Each year, the diameter of the tree trunk of General Sherman grew by almost half an inch.
