The biggest of northern California’s giant redwood trees grow more than 250 ft. tall, with a circumference greater than 90 ft. at their base. The oldest have seen more than 3,000 years.

It’s a giant sequoia, a member of Sequoiadendron giganteum, one of several surviving species of redwoods. The living crown (this one atop the General Sherman, at center) was once a distant mystery.