List of largest giant sequoias

The giant sequoia is the world's most massive tree, and arguably the largest living organism on Earth. It is neither the tallest extant species of tree, nor is it the widest, nor is it the longest-lived. However, with a height of or more, a circumference of or more, an estimated bole volume of up to, and a documented lifespan of 3266 years, the giant sequoia is among the tallest, widest, and longest-lived of all organisms on Earth.
Giant sequoias grow in well-defined groves in California mixed evergreen forests, along with other old-growth species such as California incense cedar. Because most of the neighboring trees are also quite large, it can be difficult to appreciate the size of an individual giant sequoia. The largest giant sequoias are as tall as a 26-story building, and the width of their bases can exceed that of a city street. They grow at such a rate as to produce roughly of wood each year, approximately equal to the volume of a 50-foot-tall tree one foot in diameter. This makes them among the fastest growing organisms on Earth, in terms of annual increase in mass.

Distribution

Giant sequoias occur naturally in only one place on Earth—the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California, on moist, unglaciated ridges and valleys at an altitude of above mean sea level. There are 65–75 groves of giant sequoias in the Sierra Nevada, depending upon the criteria used to define a grove. The northernmost of these groves is Placer County Big Trees Grove in the Tahoe National Forest, Placer County, California, while the southernmost grove is Deer Creek Grove in the Giant Sequoia National Monument, Tulare County, California. The combined total area of all groves of giant sequoias is approximately.

Fire limits growth

Giant sequoias are in many ways adapted to forest fires. Their bark is unusually fire resistant, and their cones will normally open immediately after a fire. However, fire is also the most serious damaging agent of giant sequoias. Seedlings and saplings are highly susceptible to death or serious injury by fire. Larger giant sequoias are more resistant to fire damage, due to their thick protective layer of nonresinous bark and elevated crowns. However, repeated fires over many centuries may penetrate the bark and destroy the vascular cambium. Nearly all of the larger trees have fire scars, many of which cover a large area of the base of the tree. Older trees are rarely killed by fire alone, but the resulting structural damage may predispose a tree to collapse and fire scars also provide entry for fungi which may cause root disease and heart rot. The resulting decayed wood is then more easily consumed by subsequent fires. The result of this cycle is further structural weakening of the tree, which may eventually lead to its collapse.
Fire scars are thought to be the main cause of dead tops. Although lightning strikes rarely kill mature trees, lightning sometimes knocks out large portions of crowns or ignites dead tops. The most common cause of death in mature giant sequoias is toppling, due to weakening of the roots and lower trunk by fire and decay. The extreme weight of the trees coupled with their shallow root systems contributes to this weakening. Other causative factors include wind, water-softened soils, undercutting by streams, and heavy snow loads in the crowns.
The Washington Tree, located in the Giant Forest Grove in Sequoia National Park provides a good example of the aforementioned phenomenon. This tree was the second-largest tree in the world until September 2003, when the tree lost a portion of its crown as a result of a fire caused by a lightning strike. This reduced its height from nearly to about. The structurally weakened tree partially collapsed in January 2005, as the result of a heavy snow load in the remaining portion of its crown; it is now approximately tall.

Tree measurement

As with other trees, measurement of giant sequoias is conducted using established dendrometric techniques. The most frequent measurements acquired in the field include the height of the tree, the horizontal dimension of its canopy, and its diameter at breast height. These measurements are then subjected to tree allometry, which employs certain mathematical and statistical principles to estimate the amount of timber volume in a tree.
Calculating the volume of a standing tree is the practical equivalent of calculating the volume of an irregular cone, and is subject to error for various reasons. This is partly due to technical difficulties in measurement, and variations in the shape of trees and their trunks. Measurements of trunk circumference are taken at only a few predetermined heights up the trunk, and assume that the trunk is circular in cross-section, and that taper between measurement points is even. Also, only the volume of the trunk is taken into account, and not the volume of wood in the branches or roots. The volume measurements also do not take cavities into account. For example, while studying sequoia tree canopies in 1999, researchers discovered that the Washington tree in Giant Forest Grove was largely hollow.

List of largest giant sequoias by trunk volume

The following table is a list of the largest giant sequoias, all of which are located in California. The table is sorted by trunk volume, ignoring wood in the branches of the tree.
indicates a giant sequoia that sustained heavy fire damage after its most recent volume estimate.

Rank	Name	Location	Coordinates	Height	Circumference	Bole Volume	Comments
1	General Sherman	Giant Forest Grove					Named after William Tecumseh Sherman.
2	General Grant Tree	General Grant Grove					Named after Ulysses S. Grant; designated as the "Nation's Christmas Tree" since 1926.
3	The President	Giant Forest Grove					Named after U.S. President Warren G. Harding.
4	Lincoln	Giant Forest Grove					Named after Abraham Lincoln.
5	Stagg	Alder Creek Grove					Named after Amos Alonzo Stagg.
6	Boole	Converse Basin Grove					Named after Franklin A. Boole. The tree has the largest footprint of any living giant sequoia.
7	Genesis	Mountain Home Grove					Named after Genesis. Heavily damaged by the Castle Fire.
8	Franklin	Giant Forest Grove					Named after Benjamin Franklin. Located near Washington.
9	King Arthur	Garfield Grove					Named after King Arthur. Destroyed in the Castle Fire.
10	Monroe	Giant Forest Grove					Named after James Monroe, located near Auto Log.
11	Robert E. Lee	General Grant Grove					Named after Robert E. Lee.
12	Floyd Otter	Garfield Grove					Named after Floyd Otter, a former manager of the Mountain Home Demonstration State Forest. Possibly heavy damage from Castle Fire.
13	John Adams	Giant Forest Grove					Named after John Adams, located near Cattle Cabin.
14	Ishi Giant	Kennedy Grove					Lost significant trunk volume and over in height during the 2015 Rough Fire. New volume and height estimates needed to determine the current size of the tree.
15	Column	Giant Forest Grove					Located near Pershing.
16	Summit Road	Mountain Home Grove					Named after a nearby road. Possible heavy damage from the Castle Fire.
17	Euclid	Mountain Home Grove					Named after Euclid.
18	Washington	Mariposa Grove					The largest giant sequoia north of Boole. Named after George Washington. Not to be confused with the Washington tree of Giant Forest Grove.
19	Pershing	Giant Forest Grove					Named after John J. Pershing.
20	Diamond	Atwell Mill Grove					Named for a large diamond-shaped scar present on the southeastern side of the trunk.
21	Adam	Mountain Home Grove					Named after Adam.
22	Roosevelt	Redwood Mountain Grove					Named after Theodore Roosevelt.
23	Nelder	Nelder Grove					Named after John A. Nelder.
24	Above Diamond	Atwell Mill Grove					Situated just above Diamond, hence the name "AD".
25	Hart	Redwood Mountain Grove					Named after Michael Hart, who discovered it.
26	Grizzly Giant	Mariposa Grove					Originally named the "Grizzled Giant" by Galen Clark.
27	Chief Sequoyah	Giant Forest Grove					Named after Sequoyah.
28	Methuselah	Mountain Home Grove					Named after Methuselah.
29	Great Goshawk	Freeman Creek Grove					The largest giant sequoia south of Stagg. Named after the Northern goshawk, a hawk native to the Sierra Nevada.
30	Hamilton	Giant Forest Grove					Named after Alexander Hamilton.
31	Dean	Atwell Mill Grove					Named after a carving of the name "Dean" that was found on a charred area of the trunk by Wendell D. Flint in 1950.
32	Black Mountain Beauty	Black Mountain Grove					Also known as "Black Mountain Shaft". The tree lost significant volume after it burned during the 2017 Pier Fire. New volume estimate needed to determine the current volume of the tree.