HERE AND ONLY HERE
Coast redwoods grow only one place on Earth – right here on the Pacific coast, from Big Sur to southern Oregon. Earlier in the Earth’s history, redwoods had a much wider range, including western North America and the coasts of Europe and Asia.

https://sempervirens.org/discover-redwoods/facts-history/?gclid=COjkru729tICFQiDfgodRRgNcQ

A redwood tree in Armstrong Woods

The serene, majestic beauty of this Grove is a living reminder of the magnificent primeval redwood forest that covered much of this area before logging operations began during the 19th century. Armstrong Redwoods preserves stately and magnificent Sequoia sempervirens, commonly known as the coast redwood. These trees stand together as a testament to the wonders of the natural world. The grove offers solace from the hustle and bustle of daily life, offering the onlooker great inspiration and a place for quiet reflection.

http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=450

Cathedral Grove in Muir Woods

STURDY SURVIVORS
Redwoods live so long – and are treasured by humans for building – because they are extremely resistant to insects, fire and rot. At one time, San Francisco’s building codes required redwood lumber to be used in the foundations of new structures. A redwood’s bark can be one foot thick, and it contains tannin which protects the tree from fire, insects, fungus and diseases.

https://sempervirens.org/discover-redwoods/facts-history/?gclid=COjkru729tICFQiDfgodRRgNcQ

Mrs. Jaye lives in San Francisco near the top of Lombard Street on Russian Hill.

54 years ago she planted a redwood tree in honor and in memory of her husband and two young boys who had recently died in a airplane crash. 

A few of Mrs. Jaye's influential neighbors who live across from her, have formed a coalition, and are hoping to one day cut down the tree to improve their views as soon as Mrs. Jaye is gone, insisting that the tree is hazardous. 

The tree has been evaluated by 10 Urban Forestry Council members, 1 staff member and a Certified Arborist.  All these reports show that the tree is vigorously healthy, just entering the prime of its life, and is NOT a hazard. 

These written reports can be found at: HelpLandmarkThisRedwood.com in the “Evaluations, Reports, History” tab.

The pathway in the backyard where the redwood lives.

The tree is now 85-foot tall, and is 24 ft round at the base. Mrs. Jaye chose a redwood to remind her of Muir Woods, where she and her husband got engaged. Friday’s meeting at City Hall was the third time Urban Forestry Council considered Jaye’s sequoia for San Francisco’s tree landmark program.

On Friday March 24th, the San Francisco’s Urban Forestry Council voted unanimously to confer landmark status on an 85-foot redwood tree. Unfortunately, the battle is not over yet. This decision was a well deserved victory, but a final ruling now rests in the hands of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

HelpLandmarkThisRedwood.com

 

Here is the link to tree's Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/HelpPreserveThisSFRedwoodTree/

A close-up of the bark on the trunk at the base of Meri Jaye's redwood tree

TALLEST TREES ON EARTH
Your local coast redwood tree can grow to 300 feet or more, compared to the tallest pine tree at 268 feet or the tallest tanoak at 162 feet — yet its root system is only 6 to 12 feet deep. Redwoods create the strength to withstand powerful winds and floods by extending their roots more than 50 feet from the trunk and living in groves where their roots can intertwine.

https://sempervirens.org/discover-redwoods/facts-history/?gclid=COjkru729tICFQiDfgodRRgNcQ

 

San Francisco’s Urban Forestry Council voted unanimously last Friday to confer landmark status on an 85-foot redwood in a Russian Hill homeowner’s backyard.

Believe it or not, this was a watershed vote in a long and highly contentious neighborhood fight. But the battle isn’t over yet.

http://sf.curbed.com/2017/3/27/15076152/russian-hill-redwood-landmark

Just down the block from Mrs. Jaye's home is another ever larger redwood tree.

ANCIENT OLD-GROWTH – AND ASPIRING YOUNGSTERS
Most of the redwoods we see are about 50-150 years old. That’s equivalent to about age 2-6 in human years! Coast redwoods can grow 100 feet in their first 50 years, so they quickly look like grown-ups. So, when you walk or ride through the Santa Cruz Mountains, remember you are in a nursery of young redwoods that, if protected, can live for 2,000 years and can help rebuild a healthy redwood forest for people, wildlife and future generations.

https://sempervirens.org/discover-redwoods/facts-history/?gclid=COjkru729tICFQiDfgodRRgNcQ

The tree is full or part-time home to numerous species of birds including: Mourning Dove, American Crow, American Robin, Orange-crowned Warbler, Anna’s Hummingbird , Western Scrub Jay, Hermit Thrush, Dark-eyed Junco, Downy Woodpecker, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Townsend’s Warbler, White-crowned Sparrow, Northern Flicker, Pygmy Nuthatch Yellow-rumped warbler & Lesser Goldfinch

 

The tree and Mrs. Jaye had a special visit by Chief Miller of the Lacota Tribe in 2013, chanting blessings "to protect this tree always".

 

Mrs. Jaye planted this tree in 1962 as a memorial to late husband and 2 children, tragically lost in a plane accident.

The tree has a "sister" tree in Japan planted a couple years after this one.

Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed, — chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones.... Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries since Christ’s time — and long before that — God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools, — only Uncle Sam can do that. ~John Muir, “The American Forests,” August 1897

Big Basin State Park

The Origin of Conservation in the Santa Cruz Mountains
Anyone looking for an introduction to coast redwoods should start at Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The establishment of Big Basin marked the beginning of conservation efforts in the Santa Cruz Mountains. And Big Basin is a beautiful place—coastal redwoods, riparian canyons and sun-kissed chaparral span over the park’s 18,000-acres.

https://sempervirens.org/big-basin-redwoods-state-park/?gclid=CM-JyYnZ-dICFU9bfgodycIAJg

Samuel P. Taylor State Park

Located in a redwood-filled gorge a short drive west of Marin County's suburbs, Samuel P. Taylor State Park is a popular recreation area for local residents. The park offers a day use (picnic) area and camping, plus the wide and level Cross Marin Trail, which makes for easy cycling under second-growth redwoods. More challenging trails climb the grassy hilltops around the valley and offer nice views of the Marin countryside.

http://www.redwoodhikes.com/Taylor/Taylor.html

In 2006 the City of San Francisco had the tremendous foresight to create a Landmark Tree Program to “identify and preserve the City’s most important trees”.

On March 24, 2017 the SF Urban Forestry Council VOTED UNANIMOUSLY to support the nomination to landmark this spectacular tree. 
This follows a unanimous vote of support by the Landmark Tree Committee on 10/6/16.

 

Gigantic second and third growth trees are found in the redwoods, forming magnificent temple-like circles around charred ruins more than a thousand years old.

John Muir, “The American Forests,” August 1897

Muir Woods

Not a redwood, but a sequoia, in Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park

https://www.savetheredwoods.org/park/yosemite-national-park/?gclid=CMjN_tra-dICFQJsfgod0MsLnA

Muir Woods

Standing at the base of Earth’s tallest tree, the coast redwood, is one of life’s most humbling and amazing experiences. These California trees can reach higher than a 30-floor skyscraper (more than 320 feet), so high that the tops are out of sight.

Their trunks can grow more than 27 feet wide, about eight paces by an average adult person! Even more incredible: These trees can live for more than 2,000 years. Some coast redwoods living today were alive during the time of the Roman Empire.

https://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/

 

Mrs. Meri Jaye and friends during the hearing at City Hall on March 24th, the day San Francisco’s Urban Forestry Council voted unanimously to confer landmark status on an 85-foot redwood tree. But the battle is not over.

Mrs. Meri Jaye speaking at the hearing at City Hall on March 24th.

 

The Redwoods

Written in 1932 by Joseph P. Strauss, Chief Engineer, Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District

Here, sown by the Creator's hand.
In serried ranks, the Redwoods stand:
No other clime is honored so,
No other lands their glory know.

The greatest of Earth's living forms,
Tall conquerors that laugh at storms;
Their challenge still unanswered rings,
Through fifty centuries of kings.

The nations that with them were young,
Rich empires, with their forts far-flung,
Lie buried now-their splendor gone:
But these proud monarchs still live on.

So shall they live, when ends our days,
When our crude citadels decay;
For brief the years allotted man,
But infinite perennials' span.

This is their temple, vaulted high,
And here, we pause with reverent eye,
With silent tongue and awestruck soul;
For here we sense life's proper goal:

To be like these, straight, true and fine,
to make our world like theirs, a shrine;
Sink down, Oh, traveler, on your knees,
God stands before you in these trees.

 

Redwoods once grew throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The first redwood fossils date back more than 200 million years to the Jurassic period. Before commercial logging and clearing began in the 1850s, coast redwoods naturally occurred in an estimated 2 million acres (the size of three Rhode Islands) along California’s coast from south of Big Sur to just over the Oregon border. When gold was discovered in 1849, hundreds of thousands of people came to California, and redwoods were logged extensively to satisfy the explosive demand for lumber and resources. Today, only 5 percent of the original old-growth coast redwood forest remains, along a 450-mile coastal strip. Most of the coast redwood forest is now young. The largest surviving stands of ancient coast redwoods are found in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Redwood National and State Parks and Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

The native people of California did not typically cut down coast redwoods, but used fallen trees to make planks for houses and hollowed out logs for canoes. The natives also regularly used common redwood forest plants. Read more about uses of redwood forest plants through our Redwood Forest Plant Guide.

 

The hearing at City Hall on March 24th, on the day San Francisco’s Urban Forestry Council voted unanimously to confer landmark status on an 85-foot redwood tree. But the battle is not over.

An email provided by Mrs. Jaye’s attorney, Matthew Gluck, to the Forestry Council raised concern that Jaye, an elderly woman, was allegedly taken advantage of by a neighbor.
The neighbor, Gluck wrote, asked Jaye to sign an easement for her property without an attorney present. The neighbor presented the easement as a document that would protect her beloved tree, but in actuality, Gluck wrote, it “effectively prevented any future development of any part of Mrs. Jaye’s property by giving [the neighbor’s] property permanent rights to the air, light and view extending from the existing residence, garage and garden ‘to the top of the atmosphere.’”
“Due to her age and fragile condition, and because she trusted her neighbor who appeared to want to help her, Mrs. Jaye acquiesced,” Gluck wrote, “and signed the easement on the spot.”
Gluck, however, later threatened this neighbor with legal action and he released the easement.

From San Francisco Examiner 3.28.17

by Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

http://www.sfexaminer.com/redwood-tree-near-crooked-lombard-street-may-become-landmark/

The moment on March 24th when San Francisco’s Urban Forestry Council voted unanimously to confer landmark status on an 85-foot redwood tree. But the battle is not over.

Please contact Supervisor Farrell requesting him to sponsor the nomination of the redwood tree at 4 Montclair Terrace for landmark status. I (we) look forward to having your support for this wonderful project.

Supervisor Mark Farrell

City Hall

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 244

San Francisco, Ca 94102-4689

(415) 554-7752 - voice

(415) 554-7843 - fax

Mark.Farrell@sfgov.org

Kanishka Karunaratne, Legislative Aide at Kanishka.Karunaratne@sfgov.org

Jess Montejano, Legislative Aide at Jess.Montejano@sfgov.org

Cathedral Grove in Muir Woods

For more of my photos at Muir Woods, go to:

http://www.ronhenggeler.com/San%20Francisco/Mount%20Tamalpais/MtTamIndex3.htm

Trees are crucial to maintaining a stable human-friendly climate. Studies show that coast redwoods capture more carbon dioxide (CO2) from our cars, trucks and power plants than any other tree on Earth. And, as the climate changes, the redwood forests in the Santa Cruz Mountains are one of very few places that can provide a refuge for plants and animals here to survive, because the area has many microclimates, is cooled by coastal summertime fog and is still largely unpaved.

https://sempervirens.org/discover-redwoods/facts-history/?gclid=COjkru729tICFQiDfgodRRgNcQ

The moment on March 24th when San Francisco’s Urban Forestry Council voted unanimously to confer landmark status on an 85-foot redwood tree. But the battle is not over.

Please contact Supervisor Farrell requesting him to sponsor the nomination of the redwood tree at 4 Montclair Terrace for landmark status. I (we) look forward to having your support for this wonderful project.

Mrs. Meri Jaye leaving the hearing room after the Urban Forestry Council voted unanimously to confer landmark status on her 85-foot redwood tree.

But the battle is not over.

3.23.17 ABC Channel 7 News

http://abc7news.com/society/sf-residents-at-odds-over-massive-redwood-tree/1815939/

 

Muir Woods

The list of other landmarked trees in San Francisco

https://sfenvironment.org/article/list-of-landmarked-trees

 

54 years ago she planted the redwood tree in honor and in memory of her husband and two young boys who had recently died in a airplane crash. 

A few of Mrs. Jaye's influential neighbors who live across from her, have formed a coalition, and are hoping to one day cut down the tree to improve their views as soon as Mrs. Jaye is gone, insisting that the tree is hazardous. 

The tree has been evaluated by 10 Urban Forestry Council members, 1 staff member and a Certified Arborist.  All these reports show that the tree is vigorously healthy, just entering the prime of its life, and is NOT a hazard. 

These written reports can be found at: HelpLandmarkThisRedwood.com in the “Evaluations, Reports, History” tab.

The redwood is one of the few conifers that sprout from the stump and roots, and it declares itself willing to begin immediately to repair the damage of the lumberman and also that of the forest-burner. ~John Muir, “The American Forests,” August 1897

Not redwoods, but sequoias, in Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park

Mrs. Jaye and her supporters at City Hall after the hearing on January 27, 2017

For more information:

http://www.ronhenggeler.com/Newsletters/2017/1.27/Newsletter.html

AS OLD AS THE DINOSAURS — ALMOST
The earliest redwoods showed up on Earth shortly after the dinosaurs – and before flowers, birds, spiders… and, of course, humans. Redwoods have been around for about 240 million years and in California for at least 20 million years, compared to about 200,000 years for “modern” humans.

https://sempervirens.org/discover-redwoods/facts-history/

Muir Woods

Only a few miles north of San Francisco, in a isolated canyon, grows the ancient coast redwood forest known the world over as Muir Woods. The park offers solitude, interpretive displays and programs, and numerous hiking trails. Come stroll through 1,000 year old giant trees towering 260 feet high and find out why famed naturalist John Muir called this… “…the best tree-lovers monument that could possibly be found in all the forests of the world.”

http://www.visitmuirwoods.com

Mrs. Jaye's redwood tree on Montclair at Lombard

A view of the tree from the first curve on Lombard

http://sf.curbed.com/2017/3/3/14806454/redwood-tree-landmark-san-francisco-lombard

The view beyond Mrs. Jaye's rooftop as seen from the top of Lombard Street at Hyde

Mrs. Jaye's weathervane

Mrs. Jaye at her office desk

 

 

 

SEE 2,000-YEAR-OLD REDWOODS HERE
Officially, the oldest living coast redwood is at least 2,200 years old, but foresters believe some coast redwoods may be much older.

https://sempervirens.org/discover-redwoods/facts-history/

Last Friday I wrote to Dr. Jane Goodall telling her about the unaminous vote by the San Francisco’s Urban Forestry Council to confer landmark status on Mrs. Jaye's redwood tree. She wrote back:

Dear Ron,
This is fantastic
We need more news like this.
And just last week it was decided by supreme court in New Zealand that a river has same legal status as a human
Yipee and again Yipee
Love Jane

John Muir (lright) with John Burroughs
Literary naturalist and essayist from the Catskills of New York.
John Burroughs was one of America's foremost nature writers. He was a biographer of Walt Whitman and is famous for his love of birds.
Burroughs accompanied Muir on the Alaska Harriman Expedition and other trips, including visits to Grand Canyon and Yosemite.
Burroughs wrote of Muir after their second meeting: "He is a poet and almost a Seer. Something ancient and far-away in the look of his eyes. He could not sit down in the corner of the landscape, as Thoreau did, he must have a continent for his playground..... Probably the truest lover of Nature.... we have yet had... [But here is] a little prolix... Ask him to tell you his famous dog story and you will get the whole theory of glaciation thrown in."
After Muir's death, Burroughs made this comment: "A unique character - greater as a talker than as a writer - he loved personal combat and shone in it. He hated writing and composed with difficulty, though his books have charm of style; but his talk came easily and showed him at his best. I shall greatly miss him."

http://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/people/burroughs.aspx

Not a redwood, but a sequoia, in Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park

As a wilderness explorer, he is renowned for his exciting adventures in California's Sierra Nevada, among Alaska's glaciers, and world wide travels in search of nature's beauty. As a writer, he taught the people of his time and ours the importance of experiencing and protecting our natural heritage. His writings contributed greatly to the creation of Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Petrified Forest, and Grand Canyon National Parks. Dozens of places are named after John Muir, including the Muir Woods National Monument, the John Muir Trail, Muir College (UCSD), and many schools.

http://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/about/

Not a redwood, but a sequoia, in Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park

AS OLD AS THE DINOSAURS — ALMOST
The earliest redwoods showed up on Earth shortly after the dinosaurs – and before flowers, birds, spiders… and, of course, humans. Redwoods have been around for about 240 million years and in California for at least 20 million years, compared to about 200,000 years for “modern” humans.

https://sempervirens.org/discover-redwoods/facts-history/

Muir Woods

The redwood is the glory of the Coast Range. It extends along the western slope, in a nearly continuous belt about ten miles wide, from beyond the Oregon boundary to the south of Santa Cruz, a distance of nearly four hundred miles, and in massive, sustained grandeur and closeness of growth surpasses all the other timber woods of the world.

John Muir

 

The words and deeds of John Muir helped inspire President Theodore Roosevelt's innovative conservation programs, including establishing the first National Monuments by Presidential Proclamation, and Yosemite National Park by congressional action. In 1892, John Muir and other supporters formed the Sierra Club "to make the mountains glad." John Muir was the Club's first president, an office he held until his death in 1914. Muir's Sierra Club has gone on to help establish a series of new National Parks and a National Wilderness Preservation System.

A noon performance at City Hall on the day San Francisco’s Urban Forestry Council voted unanimously to confer landmark status on Mrs. Jaye's 85-foot redwood tree.

Mrs. Jaye leaving San Francisco City Hall on March 24th, the day San Francisco’s Urban Forestry Council voted unanimously to confer landmark status on an 85-foot redwood tree.

Redwoods in Butano State Park, A Serene Forest Off Highway 1

Butano State Park is halfway between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay. Turn inland from Highway 1 and rolling hills give way to a tall, dense redwood forest. The 4,628-acre park typically has fewer visitors than neighboring parks such as Big Basin or Henry Cowell, giving Butano a serene, secluded feeling.

https://sempervirens.org/butano-state-park/?gclid=CM7Oj6HS-dICFQtnfgodc4AJ3A

John Muir (1838-1914) was America's most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist, and founder of the Sierra Club.

A snapshot of the endless stream of thousands of cars that roll down Lombard Street every day of the year.

The SF Urban Forestry Council VOTED UNANIMOUSLY to support the nomination to landmark this spectacular tree. This follows a unanimous vote of support by the Landmark Tree Committee on October 6, 2016.
Please contact Supervisor Farrell requesting him to sponsor the nomination of the redwood tree at 4 Montclair Terrace for landmark status. I (we) look forward to having your support for this wonderful project.

Supervisor Mark Farrell

City Hall

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 244

San Francisco, Ca 94102-4689

(415) 554-7752 - voice

(415) 554-7843 - fax

Mark.Farrell@sfgov.org

Kanishka Karunaratne, Legislative Aide at Kanishka.Karunaratne@sfgov.org

Jess Montejano, Legislative Aide at Jess.Montejano@sfgov.org

Mrs. Jaye in her garden, home to a redwood tree on Russian Hill

HelpLandmarkThisRedwood.com

Fight on!!!“This beautiful, strong tree is a symbol of survival...just like it's matriarch Mérí Jaye and the City she so dearly loves.Too many San Francisco landmarks that make up the tapestry of this City's unique character have been destroyed by people who don't value what this City is about. Meri Jaye and this tree are treasures and pose no threat to the neighborhood. They only enhance this wonderful tapestry of our unique City By The Bay. Fight onMeri Jaye! Fight on you great, strong, beautiful SanFrancisco lady!You are and have always been an inspiration to me. We love and support you and this beautiful tree.”
~Jennifer Sorensen (aka Perrando), San Rafael, CA

Please contact Supervisor Farrell requesting him to sponsor the nomination of the redwood tree at 4 Montclair Terrace for landmark status.

(see above for the contact information)

 

Map: San Francisco’s landmark trees

http://sf.curbed.com/maps/map-sf-landmark-tree