And here is a young female cone. Once fertilized, the cones continue to develop for a year before the naked seeds are released. It is partly the morphology of these cones that distinguishes the sequoia from other conifers and places it in the small family Taxodiaceae. Today there are just a few representatives of this family, including the coastal and sierra redwoods, the bald cypress of southeastern U.S. and a recently-discovered Chinese tree, the dawn redwood. Fifty million years ago it was one of the most important and wide-spread of all plant families. The few remaining members are, in a sense, living fossils.
Needle and Cone menu