A person is standing between two sequoia trees, in the Sequoia National Park, USA, believed to be around 2000 years old. Forest fires do not kill the trees but they remove competing thin-barked species, and aid giant sequoia regeneration (note the large fire scar at the base of the right-hand tree).
Sequoiadendron giganteum (known by names such as giant sequoia, Sierra redwood, or Wellingtonia) is the only species in the genus Sequoiadendron, and one of the three species of coniferous trees known as redwood trees, classified in the family Cupressaceae and in the subfamily Sequoioideae, together with Sequoia sempervirens (Coast Redwood) and Metasequoia glyptostroboides (Dawn Redwood). The common use of the name ‘sequoia’ generally refers to Sequoiadendron, which occurs naturally only in the various groves that exist on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.
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Top of this image (lithograph) shows a party of 32 people dancing on the stump of the Discovery Tree, North Calaveras Grove, USA. Image at the Bottom: a 30-foot section of the General Noble Tree, which was displayed at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and later at the Mall in Washington, DC. It was subsequently taken to the US government's Arlington Experiment Farm, where it was misplaced. (The image is scanned from the book, ‘Redwoods: The World's Largest Trees’ written by Hewes, J.J., 1984, published by Gallery Books.)
The giant sequoia tree was well known to the Native American tribes of the area of the Giant Forests, home to these giant redwood trees. But the account of the trees can be found in the diary of the explorer J. K. Leonard (1833), and though it does not mention any locality, it is believed his route would have taken him through the Calaveras Grove, followed by John M. Wooster, who carved his initials on the bark of the Hercules Tree in the Calaveras Grove in 1850. But publicity about the tree was given when the Discovery Tree was found by Augustus T. Dowd in the Calaveras Grove in 1852, and the 'Discovery Tree', was felled in 1853.
This sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) tree is located at New Forest, Hampshire, England. It is one of the tallest in the UK at 51.5 meters, as on 3 November 2008.
Sequoia National Park, in the southern Sierra Nevada, east of Visalia, California, USA, was established in 1890. The park covers an area of 1,635 squire km, and has the highest peak, Mount Whitney (14,505 feet or 4,421 m above sea level), in the contiguous 48 states of USA.
Sequoia National Park is located south of Kings Canyon National Park, contiguous with it and the two national parks are administered by the National Park Service.
Sequoia National Park is world famous for its Giant Sequoia trees (Sequoiadendron giganteum), including the General Sherman tree, one of the largest trees in the world. The General Sherman tree grows in the Giant Forest within the park, and five of the ten largest trees in the world by volume on the planet are located within the Giant Forest, which is connected by Generals Highway to Kings Canyon National Park.
Broken branch of the General Sherman tree: In January 2006, this largest branch on the tree broke off from the main trunk and fell to the ground smashing part of the enclosing fence and cratered the pavement of the walkway surrounding the giant sequoia.
General Sherman tree, the Giant Sequoia tree with a height of 275 feet (83.8 meters), is the world's largest individual organism by volume, since its wood volume was calculated in 1931. It means this sequoia tree is the largest tree in the world. This Giant Sequoia has a volume of 1,487 cubic meters (52,500 cubic feet), as measured in 2002. Its trunk alone is estimated to weigh over 1,800 tons. It is located in the Sequoia National Park, California, United States. The tree is believed to be between 2,300 and 2,700 years old.
However, the largest single-stem tree ever measured is the now dead Lindsey creek tree, a Coast Redwood tree with a minimum trunk volume of over 2,500 cubic meters (88,000 cubic feet) and a weight of over 3,300 tons. It fell over during a storm in 1905.
In 1879 General Sherman tree was named after William Tecumseh Sherman, the American Civil War General, by the naturalist James Wolverton, who had served as a lieutenant in the 9th Indiana Cavalry under Sherman.
In January 2006 the largest branch of the General Sherman tree, protruding from about 1/4th down the trunk, broke off. The broken branch had a diameter of over 2 meter (6 feet) and a length of over 30 meter (100 feet). However, the loss of the branch did not alter the tree's status as the largest tree, because its size has been calculated using measurements of trunk volume excluding branches.
General Grant tree is the largest giant sequoia tree in the Grant Grove section of Kings Canyon National Park. In 1867, it was named after Ulysses S. Grant, Union Army general and the 18th President of the United States (1869-1877). The sequoia tree was proclaimed the ‘Nation's Christmas Tree’ on April 28, 1926 by President Calvin Coolidge. On March 29, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared the tree a ‘National Shrine’, a memorial to those who died in war. It is the only living being to be so declared.
General Grant tree became the second largest tree in the world, after the General Sherman tree as of 2005, when the Washington tree, which was previously in second place lost half of its trunk due to a lightning-caused fire.
Age of the General Grant tree was once believed to be over 2,000 years, but recent estimates show its age closer to 1,650 years.
Let me confess first that this is a crazy video. All that Obaid Karki says need not be true, there can be statistical errors, or he may have a hidden agenda. Don’t worry about it because, all of us are crazy in one way or the other, and what all we say or write may also have lies, half-lies, or untruth. Not necessarily by intention or design, but they turn out to be so, because of our individual preferences and biases. In the same manner, take what Obaid Karki says with a pinch of salt, but you may agree, the rebel in him has some kind of spark that can lead you to truth.
So, listen to this video, if you are interested in finding out what is the truth, or what the nearest correct thing, in case these facts, especially relating to recession, financial swindles, etc. may never come out.
Obaid Karki speaks about Lehman Bros, Barclays, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, $700b bailout of the Bush Era, and many related things. Most of us are through news on these either reading our morning papers, while surfing the net, or watching news while sipping a hot cup of coffee at the comfort of our homes, though the news generated a lot of discomfort, as when the system collapses, the ultimate sufferers are people like you and me, irrespective of who stole from whom, who took the maximum corporate gifts and goodies in Wallstreet, or whatever.
The date of the video seems to be September 27, 2008, and it is the time that most people woke up to the uncomfortable truth that we are through one of the worst recessions, even worse than the Great Depression of the 1030s, expert economists and master statisticians warned. But the truth is the recession was already in right in 2007, mostly triggered by the big real estate bubble burst, big executive bonuses at Wallstreet (and other streets where people fought over ill-gotten wealth), unsustainably high war-spending in the history of mankind, and the readiness of governments and auditors to window-dress economic figures, and then present rosy pictures to the public, hiding crucial facts.
Obaid Karki describes himself in his YouTube profile as “An Outcast Underdog Libertarian Diogenesist Kabbalist Spinoziste Qutbist Pantheon Hexalingual Automath Former UAE Under Secretary Independent Street-Knowledge Urban Talking-head Unaffiliated to a State, an Organized Religion Group, a Sect or a Kin and an Anti Tribal Gentile”. Sorry, I don’t quite get an idea about all these stuff. But I like what he follows up with, like, “Every phrase is an earnest verdict that’s my bio, if you don’t agree with me that’s an honor, it is immoral to appease to please, my word hurts big time because it is quality of a moment of truth”.
