Icicle Tree - Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve

''Sequoia'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of redwood coniferous trees in the subfamily Sequoioideae of the family Cupressaceae. The only extant species of the genus is '' Sequoia sempervirens'' in the Northern California coastal forests ecoregion of Northern California and Southwestern Oregon in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The two other genera in the subfamily Sequoioideae, '' Sequoiadendron'' and '' Metasequoia'', are closely related to ''Sequoia''. It includes the tallest trees, as well as the heaviest, in the world. Several extinct

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

have been named from

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

s, including '' Sequoia affinis ''(Western North America) and '' Sequoia magnifica'' (

petrified wood Petrified wood (from Ancient Greek meaning 'rock' or 'stone'; literally 'wood turned into stone'), is the name given to a special type of ''fossilized wood'', the fossilized remains of terrestrial plant, terrestrial vegetation. ''Petrifaction ...

from the Yellowstone National Park area).

Etymology

The name ''Sequoia'' was first published as a genus name by the Austrian botanist

Stephan Endlicher Stephan Friedrich Ladislaus Endlicher, also known as Endlicher István László (24 June 1804 – 28 March 1849), was an Austrian Empire, Austrian botanist, numismatist and Sinologist. He was a director of the Botanical Garden of Vienna. Biog ...

in 1847. However, he left no specific reasons for choosing that name, and there is no record of anyone else speaking to him about its origin. Beginning in the 1860s, it was suggested that the name is a derivation from the Latin word for "sequence", since the species was thought to be a follower or remnant of massive ancient, extinct species, and thus the next in a sequence. However, in a 2012 article, author Gary Lowe argues that Endlicher would not have had the knowledge to conceive of ''Sequoia sempervirens'' as the successor to a fossil sequence, and that he more likely saw it, within the framework of his taxonomic arrangements, as completing a morphological sequence of species in regards to the number of seeds per cone scale. In 2017, Nancy Muleady-Mecham of Northern Arizona University, after extensive research with original documents in Austria, claimed to find a positive link to the person

Sequoyah Sequoyah ( ; , , or , , ; 1770 – August 1843), also known as George Gist or George Guess, was a Native American polymath and Constructed script, neographer of the Cherokee Nation. In 1821, Sequoyah completed his Cherokee syllabary, enabl ...

(the inventor of the Cherokee writing system) and Endlicher, as well as information that the use of the Latin ''sequor'' would not have been correct. However there are debilitating limitations to the arguments presented in the 2017 article. The alleged positive link is based on a similarity in pronunciation of the words "Sequoyah" and "Sequoia": valid to persons who think in English, but not those that think in German or Latin. Endlicher could not have known how Sequoyah's name was pronounced in Cherokee since he did not have the opportunity to hear spoken Cherokee. The claimed use of Latin ignores Endlicher's philological background and familiarity with the Latin of the ancient manuscripts in the royal library on which he extensively published. Endlicher's Botanical Latin prefix in the genus name Sequoia was derived from the Latin verb "''sequor''", and was not a conjugation of the verb.

Paleontology

''Sequoia jeholensis'' is the oldest recorded member of the genus ''Sequoia'' (along with ''Sequoia portlandica'', but this name is a ''

nomen dubium In binomial nomenclature, a ''nomen dubium'' (Latin for "doubtful name", plural ''nomina dubia'') is a scientific name that is of unknown or doubtful application. Zoology In case of a ''nomen dubium,'' it may be impossible to determine whether a ...

''), known from the

Jiufotang Formation The Jiufotang Formation () is an Early Cretaceous geological formation in Chaoyang, Liaoning which has yielded fossils of feathered dinosaurs, primitive birds, pterosaurs, and other organisms (see Jehol Biota). It is a member of the Jehol group. T ...

(Lower Cretaceous) and the Jiulongshan Formation (Middle Jurassic) of China. By the late

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...

the ancestral sequoias were established in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, parts of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, and western

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. Comparisons among fossils and modern organisms suggest that by this period ''Sequoia'' ancestors had already evolved a greater

tracheid A tracheid is a long and tapered Lignin, lignified cell in the xylem of Tracheophyta, vascular plants. It is a type of conductive cell called a tracheary element. Angiosperms also use another type of conductive cell, called vessel elements, to t ...

diameter that allowed it to reach the great heights characteristic of the modern '' Sequoia sempervirens'' (coast redwood) and ''

Sequoiadendron giganteum ''Sequoiadendron giganteum'' (also known as the giant sequoia, giant redwood, Sierra redwood or Wellingtonia) is a species of coniferous tree, classified in the family Cupressaceae in the subfamily Sequoioideae. Giant sequoia specimens are the la ...

'' (giant sequoia). ''Sequoia'' ancestors were not dominant in the tropical high northern latitudes, like '' Metasequoia'', a redwood whose

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

habit gave it a significant adaptive advantage in an environment with 3 months of continuous darkness. However, there still was possibly prolonged range overlap between ''Sequoia'' and ''Metasequoia'' which could have led to hybridization events that created the modern hexaploid ''Sequoia sempervirens''. See also the metastudy of the geologic history of the giant sequoia and the coast redwood. A general cooling trend by the late

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

and

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch (geology), epoch of the Paleogene Geologic time scale, Period that extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that defin ...

reduced the northern ranges of ancestral ''Sequoia''. By the end of the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

and beginning of the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58 Continued cooling in the Pliocene meant that ''Sequoia'', which is extremely intolerant to frost due to the high water content of its tissues, also became locally extinct in response to the extreme cooling of Europe and Asia. Pollen sampling of sediments found in Hungary indicates the local extinction of genus ''Sequoia'' approximately 2.7 million years ago in the first part of the Pliocene. In western North America it continued to move south through coastal

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

and

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, surviving due to the abundant rainfall and mild seasons. The

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada ( ) is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...

orogeny Orogeny () is a mountain-mountain formation, building process that takes place at a convergent boundary, convergent plate margin when plate motion compresses the margin. An or develops as the compressed plate crumples and is tectonic uplift, u ...

further isolated ''Sequoia'' because the snowy mountain peaks prevented eastward expansion. The

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

and

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

distributions are likely nearly identical to the modern ''S. sempervirens'' distributions. A number of fossil taxa originally named as ''Sequoia'' species have subsequently been reidentified into other genera. *†'' Sequoia chinensis''

- Moved to '' Metasequoia chinensis'' (Se. Endô) H.-H. Hu "Notes on a Palaeogene species of ''Metasequoia'' in China" Bulletin of the Geological Society of China, 26(1): 106. Dec 1946 *†'' Sequoia couttsiae''

- Moved to '' Quasisequoia couttsiae'' Kunzmann L. "Koniferen der Oberkreide und ihre Relikte im Tertiär Europas" Abhandlungen des Staatlichen Museums für Mineralogie und Geologie zu Dresden, 45: 57. 10 Dec 1999 *†'' Sequoia dakotensis''

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state, state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota people, Dakota Sioux ...

(

Maastrichtian The Maastrichtian ( ) is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) geologic timescale, the latest age (geology), age (uppermost stage (stratigraphy), stage) of the Late Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch or Upper Cretaceous series (s ...

) - Moved to '' Sequoites dakotensis'' (possibly a species of ''Metasequoia'') *†'' Sequoia langsdorfii''

- Moved to '' Metasequoia langsdorfii'' *†'' Sequoia reichenbachi''

- Moved to '' Metasequoia reichenbachii'' R.W. Chaney in H.-H. Hu, W.C. Cheng Bull. Fan Mem. Inst. Biol., New Series, 1(2): 158. 15 May 1948

References

{{Authority control Conifer genera Extant Jurassic first appearances Flora of California Flora of Oregon Jurassic plants Pacific temperate rainforests Taxa named by Stephan Endlicher Trees of Northern America