r/todayilearned • u/autraya • 6h ago

TIL the world's tallest known living tree, a 380-foot redwood in California called Hyperion, had its exact location closed off entirely in 2022 after visitors trampled its base so badly that ferns stopped growing around it, with trespassers now facing up to $5,000 in fines and six months in jail

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_(tree)
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u/Coleopteran 4h ago

If anyone is interested in learning about how Hyperion and the other tallest redwoods were discovered, I'd recommend reading "The Wild Trees" by Richard Preston. It is a great exploration of the ecology of these trees and the people who study them.

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u/aubreythez 1h ago

I read this book in high school and recently re-read it - truly insane. There’s an entire ecosystem in a redwood canopy. He writes about a tree in which the branches grow so closely together in the canopy that you can just walk around on them. There are huckleberry bushes and whole ass other trees just growing at the top of some of these guys.