Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) — the tallest tree species on earth, reaching over 350 feet and living 2,000 years.
Look up. Go on — lean forward over the wheel and look up, because you cannot understand these trees from eye level. This is the coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens, and it is the tallest living thing on this planet. The biggest of them stand more than three hundred and fifty feet — taller than a thirty-story building, taller than the Statue of Liberty by a hundred feet. The oldest have been alive for two thousand years, which means the tree beside your car may have been a sapling when Rome was still an empire. Don't confuse them with the giant sequoias of the Sierra Nevada — those are bulkier, heavier trees. The coast redwood is the TALL one, the skyscraper, and it grows only in a narrow ribbon of fog along this coast and nowhere else on earth. That fog is the secret, and I'll tell you why in a while. For now, just drive slowly and let the scale of it land on you.