The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-04-30
THE GIGANTIC REDwooDs
Along the Pacific Coast-The Redwood
''BeIt"-Grain Of the Wood.

Along the Pacific Coast-The Redwood
Belt Grain Of the Wood.
[AIendocino Cor. y. O. Times Democrat
All tourists in California must. either per
force or per fashion, visit the big trees of
Calaveras, but these gigantic redwoods give
but faint and imperfect idea of the forests
of California. There are several different
varieties, all of which thrive under different
conditions The big Trees have fourished
above the chiefs of their congeners in other
sections of the state, although the sea-fogs
never reach them, and they stand far above
the sea level
Along the coast and notably in Mendocino
county those thrive best which grow nearest
the sea level, and above all, those which in
the dense Pacific fogS receive a daily
fog bath for at least nine months of the
year This is due not alone to the vivifying
influence of the moisture upon the foliage
but also to the fact that their leaves possess
a peculiar power of condensing the vapor
which, dripping from them to the ground
answers every purpose of irrigation. Indeed
these trees are called self -irrigators. These
trees do not grow to any great height above
the sea-level at any place. Passing up the
coast from the lower linz of SOnoma county
"a point about sixty miles north of San Fran
CISCO, the traveller comes suddenly and I'M
announced upon the redwood belt.
Strange to say, there are no struggling
trees standing like sentries in advance of the
main army, but they present at once a
solid phalanx. The first ranks stand lust at
the brow of the hill, and while the south
side is as barren as those we have just
passed, the north side the forest is as
heavy as it is in the very heart of the belt.
1t ceases in a like abrupt manner, in the val
ley of Smiths river, few miles south of the
Ca- hot "a and
gon, though few clumps are found over the
Oregon line.
When the redwood grows in swamps and
other moist places there sometimes forms on
its outside a remarkable excrescence called
redwood fungus" This appears in the
shape of a huge knot or wart ON the tree,
and is growth of the bark, not having any
distinct grain. When cut into slabs this
knot shows notified, deep red color, filed
with little "bird's eyes" remarkably beauti-
full, and bearing high polish. In the north
ern redwoods, one frequently sees punches of
ferns and trailing plants growing on these
knots, the fallen leaves lodging on the pro-
tuberance having in time created
a soil. These little air gardens are
very beautiful Sometimes redwood
tree will take a twist or curl when
young, which increases with its growth, and
in in due time forms "curly redwood ex-
hlDlClng, when sawed, succession OF spiral
whorls in the grain Redwood is very desir-
able in the ground, but does not endure at
mospheric exposure nearly so we'll as some
other varieties of wood 1t viii not bear
heavy strain, being quite brittle, hence is
not adapted to ship-bulling or other pur-
poses where ightness and strength is desired.
This feature is quite a potent factor in the
rapid exhaustion of the redwood supply, as
these trees tower to such an immense height
and have so large diameter that when one
is felled it not only frequently brushes others
in its fall, but large portions of its own bulk
are shivered into waste wood