And help me to remember, Lord, It takes a lifetime to grow a tree. The above lines are from a poem I carried many years in my Bible. Its unknown author helped me to remember that growth is a slow process. If trees get the prize for illustrating the patience needed to grow, then one stands above the rest for living and growing through many lifetimes. That tree is the redwood.
Redwood is the layman's name for the tallest trees in the world.
They grow along the northern coast of California and the southern coast of Oregon. The December 1996 Good Science Botany Column examined the process of assigning botanical names to various plants. In the next 100 years, these trees were examined and named by Scottish, English, Austrian, American and French botanists. A town founded on this site still bears the name of that tree. Some say this was due to his great admiration for Sequoyah, the Indian.