Identification of Wellingtonia closed

Following the update at reference 1, I think I have now put this matter of how to reliably identify Wellingtonia trees to bed, otherwise the giant redwood. 

With the taxonomy being that the Wellingtonia is one of three extant members of the sequoia sub-family of the cypress family, one of the eight extant families of conifers, the cone bearing trees. The cypresses being one of the three large families, with one of the others being the pines, the other being mainly southern hemisphere, particularly but by no means exclusively Australasia.

Apart from their large size and often – but not always – distinctive shape, their leaves now look to suffice for identification of a Wellingtonia. They are different from most other conifer leaves – not least those of Christmas trees and of all those trees which have pine needles.

Figure 1a - Wellingtonia twig

Figure 1b - Wellingtonia shoots

Wellingtonia have neither needles in the way of pine trees nor small flat leaflets in the way of yew trees – or of coastal redwoods and metasequoias, the other two sequoias. Nor can their leaves be described as scales, such as those of many of the cypresses. Rather they have what one web site describes as short, awl shaped leaves, a reasonably unusual formation that they share with some junipers. With these last mostly being bushes rather than trees, so not a problem here. The snaps above were taken indoors from a sprig removed from one of the young trees noticed at reference 4.

Figure 2 - Cypress leaves

Figure 3a - one of our very own Leylandii

 

Figure 3b - A detail of the scales of the Leylandii

 

Just to be sure, I looked at some other cypress trees. With one result being Figure 3a above, turned up by Google on the search term ‘cypress leaves’, which suggests that while a lot of cypresses have scales for leaves, they are mostly carried on fern-like fronds, quite different from the shoots, sprigs and twigs of a Wellingtonia. With just one example being the well known Leylandii.

One that comes fairly close is the Lawson cypress, of which there are plenty of varieties, so one supposes that there are plenty in gardens in Surrey, although I have not been aware of them.

Figure 4 - Lawson cypress

With this snap being taken from an Australian news web site, of all places. And another is the Japanese Cedar, seemingly easily confused with a Wellingtonia from a distance.

Figure 5 - Japanese cedar

But not close up.

Given that it was young trees which seemed to be confusing the picture, the last step of this journey was to check up on the two young Wellingtonia down Longmead Road, first noticed at reference 6 rather over two years ago, inspecting any conifers that turned up on the way. 

These last reminded me that however hard one tries to categorise and classify in the world of plants, many of the features the amateur might use for identification purposes vary in a continuous way. While clearly A or clearly B does well enough most of the time, there will always be plants that are somewhere in between A and B – with this variation coming from variation within variety, perhaps the result of ground, position or climate, variation across variety – and from varying age of plant. The young plant can look quite different from the old plant. In particular, the leaves of the young plant can look quite different from those of the old plant.

Maybe this is part of why professionals were keen on the intimate details of flowers, fruits, cones & seeds and are now keen on genes.

That apart, both the trees down Longmead Road were present yesterday morning and looking well.

Figure 6a - The southern tree

Figure 6b - The southern tree again

I was impressed by these young trees being about double the height they were when they were planted back in 2018. And certainly the leader looks vigorous enough – not too mention the interesting patterning on its bark.

Figure 7a - The northern tree ring

I was pleased to see this ring of close clipped grass around the young tree, suggesting that someone is taking some care of it. I think the black hole right, by the post, is a quirk of the snap, not anything wrong with the tree.

Figure 7b - Northern tree detail

Figure 7c - Another northern tree detail

Figure 7d - Another northern tree detail

In sum, today’s story is that if the leaves of a tree are something like those at Figures 1a & 1b above, with due allowance for the age of the tree, and the form of the tree is either tall conical (usually juvenile) or tall cylindrical (usually adult), then the tree is probably a Wellingtonia.

PS: the lively debate among taxonomists mentioned at reference 1 appears to include moving the cedars back among the cypresses, at least according to one web site. A move which Wikipedia has not yet caught onto. See references 2 and 3.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/07/identification-of-wellingtonia-update.html. 

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedrus.

Reference 3: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/coniferous-trees. 

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/06/wellingtonia-5.html. 

Reference 5: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-30/lawson-cypress-leaves-with-pine-cones/8855190. 

Reference 6: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/03/sequoiadendron-giganteum.html. Including the only snap which include flowering male cones at the end of shoots.

Reference 7: http://www.redwoodworld.co.uk/redwood_types.htm. The source for Figure 5 above.

Group search key: wgc.