Tuesday, August 31, 2004

In hiking recently around the Santa Cruz Mountains, I am seeing hundreds and hundreds of redwood trees that have a substantial amount of brown, dying or dead small branches. These small dead branches are spread evenly across the whole tree, and comprise anywhere from 10 to 20% of the volume of the tree. In several parks, the percentage of affected redwood trees appears to be between 25 and 75%. I do not recall seeing this level of dead branches before, and the presence of mature redwoods without the dead branches suggests something is stressing certain trees but not others. The redwood is an evergreen and so does not lose all its leaves in the fall like many other trees. I have checked leading sites specializing in the Sudden Oak Death Syndrome (1, 2, 3), and there is no news about a massive infestation of redwoods. Does anyone know if perhaps this amount of dead leaves/branches is just normal seasonal pattern for the redwood? A reader says he has seen this in his neighborhood and thinks it might be weather-related. Clicking on these thumbnails will load full-size 1.4MB JPEG images. 9:14:29 AM

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