Titans of the trees: Stunning photographs of 3,200-year-old giant sequoias as high as 20-story buildings on Sierra Nevada slopes



Mammoth trees only grow on western slopes of mountain range running through California and Nevada


These are some of the world's largest trees, rising majestically out of the snowy slopes along the Sierra Nevada mountain range.



Photographer Michael Nichols spent two weeks capturing images of the 'President' - the world's second-biggest tree which is at least 3,200 years old in Sequoia National Park, deep in the southern region.



Sequoias only grow on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, a mountain range which runs 400 miles through Nevada and California. Giant sequoias can reach 247-feet - the height of a 20-storey building.

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Taking on the president: The world's second largest tree, a sequoia dubbed the president, on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountain range

Tree of life: Sequoias are particular to the region and can grow as tall as 20-story buildings Taming a titan: Photographer Michael Nichols spent two weeks capturing breathtaking images of the majestic tree

Writer David Quammen's article accompanies the photographer's series . The following is an excerpt from the December issue of National Geographic magazine: 'It’s not quite the largest tree on Earth. It’s the second largest.

Stunning: The December issue of National Geographic Magazine

'Recent research by scientist Steve Sillett of Humboldt State University and his colleagues has confirmed that the President ranks number two among all big trees that have ever been measured—and Sillett’s team has measured quite a few.

It doesn’t stand so tall as the tallest of coast redwoods or of Eucalyptus regnans in Australia, but height isn’t everything; it’s far more massive than any coast redwood or eucalypt.

'Its dead spire, blasted by lightning, rises to 247 feet. Its four great limbs, each as big as a sizable tree, elbow outward from the trunk around halfway up, billowing into a thick crown like a mushroom cloud flattening against the sky.

'Although its trunk isn’t quite so bulky as that of the largest giant, the General Sherman, its crown is fuller than the Sherman’s. The President holds nearly two billion leaves.

'Trees grow tall and wide-crowned as a measure of competition with other trees, racing upward, reaching outward for sunlight and water.

And a tree doesn’t stop getting larger—as a terrestrial mammal does, or a bird, their size constrained by gravity—once it’s sexually mature. A tree too is constrained by gravity, but not in the same way as a condor or a giraffe.



'It doesn’t need to locomote, and it fortifies its structure by continually adding more wood.

Given the constant imperative of seeking resources from the sky and the soil, and with sufficient time, a tree can become huge and then keep growing. Giant sequoias are gigantic because they are very, very old.'





























See below for additional images



Discovery: The trees were a source of huge fascination when they were found by settlers

Destruction: The early settlers were not afraid to cut down the giant trees for timber

Innovation: A settler in 1890 shows off the path he has cut through the giant sequoia Wawona