What is the difference between a redwood, a sequoia and a cedar? And yes, I know that a sequoia is a type of?
redwood, but how many types of redwoods are there and how do you tell them apart?
I guess what I am asking is when I look at a tree, how can I tell if it is a redwood, sequoia, or cedar as they all have red trunks
2 Responses
Nerderella C
11 Feb 2010
Brigitte H
11 Feb 2010
Different trees are named "redwood":
3 Angiosperms:
Trochetiopsis erythroxylon, fam. Sterculiaceae – St Helena Redwood
Caesalpinia sappan, fam.Fabaceae – East Indian Redwood
Caesalpinia echinata, fam. Fabaceae – South American Redwood
5 Gymnosperms:
Sequoia sempervirens – Coast Redwood
Sequoiadendron giganteu – Giant Sequoia or Sierra Redwood
Metasequoia glyptostroboides – Dawn Redwood
Cryptomeria japonica – Japanese redwood, also named Japanese cedar
all fam. Cupressaceae
The processed wood of Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris, fam. Pinaceae) – not the tree – is called redwood.
Cedar, genus Cedrus, fam. Pinaceae has a lot of species; this site lists 170:
http://zipcodezoo.com/Key/Cedrus_Genus.asp
The common names redwood and cedar are used in a haphazard way and the differences incidental.
Fazit:
"Redwood" is an imprecise name for different trees and wooden material.
Some species of genus Sequoia are named redwood
Genus Cedrus, cedar covers more than 170 species, but the name "Japanese cedar" is another common name for "Japanese redwood", a Cupressacea.
The only precise and international understood classification to characterize one specific tree/plant is the binomial taxonomy.
PS
Exactly that is the problem:
Looking at the trees you can see: it`s a cedar, a sequoia, a pine or a cypress, they have different leaves/needles.
But you can`t see, if anybody decided to call it "redwood" because it has a red stem. There are trees with red stems but not named redwood, f.e. redstem willow, red spruce trees or red maple.
Here are a number of pictures for each of the types.
Redwoods: http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&q=redwood+leaf
Sequoia: http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&q=sequoia+leaf
Cedar: http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&q=cedar+leaf
Cedars are the easiest to tell because their leaves are modified flat scale. Sequoias needles are tiny, overlapping, and similar to Juniper. Redwood needles are flat and the branches look kind of like fans in that they are very flat.