Why is a sequoia called a mammoth tree. Mammoth tree. Where does sequoia grow

Which tree is the tallest? Experts have calculated that the roots and vessels of a tree cannot raise water from the soil higher than 130 meters - this is the theoretical limit for the growth of trees in height. Today's tallest tree (112.7 meters) is California's evergreen sequoia growing

What tree is called sausage? Such a second name is given to the feathery kigelia (Kigelia pinnata) growing in tropical Africa and Madagascar. it beautiful tree  with a wide, shady crown, it has bizarre fruits. They look like large brownish sausages (up to 60 and

Tree or cobweb? In the 1980s life tree experts have serious reasons for concern. Little by little it became clear that horizontal gene transfer is not just a fun feature of the laboratory life of bacteria and not a consequence of the appearance of

Chapter Five TOTAL BEARS TREE “He is clumsy with his body, he is poor in mind ...” (The Watchman used to say so.) “Grunt hunting” The temperature in the Land Rover’s cabin reached thirty-odd degrees, and we were exhausted from dust, heat and fatigue. Behind there was a long way: having left

Chapter V. The Tree of Life The idea of \u200b\u200bconstructing an evolution tree dates back to Charles Darwin, who allowed the possibility of the origin of the entire diverse living world from a single cell (Fig. 4A). This judgment was even more revolutionary for the mid-nineteenth century than

National park Sequoia (Sequoia National Park) is located in southern Sierra Nevada, California. The area of \u200b\u200bthe park is 1635 sq km. Established in 1890 with the aim of protecting the forests of sequoias.

He is known for the fact that on its territory there are the highest, giant sequoia trees. They got their name in honor of the leader of the Indians of the Cherokee Sequoia tribe. The park has a mountainous terrain, rising from a height of about 400 m above sea level in the foothills, to the top of the highest in the neighboring 48 states of Mount Whitney, with a height of 4,421.1 m.

The sequoia park is a unique nature exclusive, in short. The first impression is as if you and all those around you were reduced by the invention of a crazy professor. After wandering through such a forest for several hours, you can very well imagine the ancient and mysterious everlasting forest in which Tolkienovsky Tom Bombadil lived.

The park is located quite high in the mountains, about 2000m above sea level:

The most popular tree in the park is the General Sherman tree, which is located in the Giant Forest. Exactly this a big tree  in a world whose height is 81 meters, the diameter at the base is about 32 meters, and the age is about 3 thousand years. In the Forest of Giants, there are five of the ten largest trees in the world by volume of wood. The forest is connected by the Generals road with the Grant Grove - Grant Grove in the Kings Canyon National Park, where there is another attraction of the park - the General Grant tree.

Tunnel Log is a small car tunnel cut right in the middle of a giant sequoia that fell on the road.

Sequoia National Park is also famous for its caves, the number of which reaches up to 250. The length of one of them is 32 kilometers in length. Crystal Cave is the second largest and the only one that is open to tourists. Sequoia National Park is attractive for its mountain scenery, beautiful waterfalls and alpine meadows. The park is home to many species of animals, including moose, American black bear, white-tailed deer, coyote, lynx.

Sequoias - these giant trees are represented by two species - the evergreen sequoia and the sequoiadendron giant or mammoth tree. Their height reaches up to 100 meters and a diameter of up to 10 meters. Sequoias are known for their age - a tree can live up to 4000 years. The unique combination of age, size and weight of these trees makes them the largest living creatures today on Earth. And this is one of the few trees that has adapted to forest fires. Giant sequoia is inferior in life to only the spinous pine trees that are found in the arid mountains of the Sierra Nevada.

There are sequoias, and there are mammoth trees. Both that and another of the huge sizes. They are easy to distinguish from each other. The mammoth tree looks like a huge sprouted log set upside down:

California sequoia is slimmer and taller than its counterpart and in silhouette more resembles a spruce. In the photo there is a mammoth tree (left) and a redwood shoot (right deep).

Comparative Facts About Mammoth Tree and California Sequoia

Mammoth Tree California Sequoia

up to 94.5 meters Height up to 111.5 meters
up to 3200 years old Tree up to 2000 years old
up to 1200 tons Weight up to 720 tons
up to 79 cm bark thickness up to 30.5 cm
up to 2.4 meters Diameter of branches up to 1.5 meters
up to 12 meters Base diameter up to 6.6 meters
seed-only propagation by seed or shoots
oatmeal-sized seed size the size of a tomato seed
ovoid Crohn ellipsoid
small, single overlapping needles, fall off twigs
  each other, awl-shaped

A live sequoia that has been knocked down will continue to try to grow with its shoots. If nothing prevents this, the shoots turned upward will turn into independent trees, and many groups of sequoia trees got their start in this way. A “cathedral” or a family of trees is just the trees that grew from the unbending remains of the trunk of a fallen sequoia, and since they grew along the perimeter of the former stump, they form a circle. Another way to survive is to flow into the sequoia. Their growth is restrained by the chemicals that a living tree produces. If the tree begins to die, or simply ends up in adverse conditions, for example, as a result of a drought or forest fire, the production of such substances decreases, and the influx is covered by green shoots. Finally, sequoia has a traditional way of propagating by seed. About 20% of the existing trees grew from seeds. The rest is the result of one or another method of vegetative propagation. If you relate these facts, you will understand that some of these trees can be a continuous growth sequence of the same organism for 20 or 30 thousand years (or even more), reproducing itself vegetatively again and again. Genetically, it will be the same tree that grew from a seed many centuries ago! Would it be right to consider the age of one of these trees by the true age of the genetic material that has remained unchanged? I don’t know, but these amazing trees seem truly eternal.

Thick fogs are an everyday occurrence on the coast where California sequoia lives, and we can say that it not only grows wildly in such conditions, but literally needs these fogs. These hundred-meter giants get moisture from there for their needles on top, where the vessel system can no longer pump it. average temperature  at 10-15 ° C, prevailing in this area is also important for life cycle  sequoia. These two conditions - temperature and humidity - are the limiters that determine the modern range of these amazing giants. But, if they are planted artificially, they can grow in a variety of places, for example, in Fresno (California), Waycross (Georgia), in Florida and even in Phoenix (Arizona). Although without coastal mists and coolness that nourish them and at the same time inhibit the growth of competing species such as pine, they will never reach their true size and nature.

Park Travel Video:

Sequoia (Sequoia) - a genus of evergreen conifers of the Taxodiaceae family (Taxodiaceae). According to one of the classification systems, the Taxodia family belongs to a subclass of Conifers (Pinidae or Coniferae), which, in turn, is included in the class of Conifers or Pinopsida, belonging to the gymnosperms (Gymnospermae) department.

The only species of the genus - sequoia evergreen, or red (S. sempervirens) - is considered a symbol of the US state of California, it is one of the tallest and longest-living trees on Earth, also famous for its beautiful, straight-layed and rot-resistant wood.

The height of the evergreen sequoia is about 90 m, and a record - 113 m. It is noted in the Redwood National Park in California. The trunk diameter reaches 6–11 m and can increase by 2.5 cm per year. Sequoia has the most valuable among taxodium wood with a red core and pale yellow or white sapwood (sapwood are the layers of wood located between the core and cambium). The bark of the tree is thick, reddish, deep furrowed. The quality of wood varies not only depending on the place of growth, but also within the same trunk. The crown is narrow, begins above the lower third of the trunk. Oval cones and short flat shoots and bluish-gray needles give sequoia beauty and splendor. The root system is formed by lateral roots that go shallow into the soil.

Evergreen sequoia is one of the longest-lived plants on Earth: its age is more than 2000 years (the oldest among the known trees is about 2200 years). Maturity occurs in 400-500 years.

The reproductive organs in sequoia (as in all conifers) are strobiles - modified shortened shoots that carry special leaves - sporophylls, on which spore-forming organs are formed - sporangia. There are male strobiles (they are called microstrobils) and female (megastrobiles). Sequoia is a monoecious plant (microstrobils and megastrobils develop on the same tree). Microstrobils are single, they are placed on the tops of shoots or in the axils of the leaves. Megastrobils are collected in small oval-shaped single cones. One of the features of sequoia is the ability to produce copious shoots that do not differ in growth rate and life expectancy from seedlings grown from seeds. Sequoia forests in America consist mainly of trees grown in this way.

At the end of the Cretaceous and the Tertiary, the evergreen sequoia along with other representatives of taxodia was widespread in the northern hemisphere, but now the remnants of the forests with its participation were preserved only in a limited territory of the west North AmericaNamely, on a narrow strip of the Pacific coast from Monterey County in northern California to the Clearwater River in southern Oregon. The length of this strip is about 720 km, it is located at an altitude of 600 to 900 m above sea level. Sequoia evergreen needs a very humid climatetherefore, it does not go further from the coast by more than 32–48 km, remaining in the zone of influence of moist sea air.

Sequoia forests were first discovered by Europeans on the Pacific coast in 1769. By the color of the wood, sequoia then got its name "mahogany" (Redwood), which has survived to this day. In 1847, the Austrian botanist Stefan Endlicher singled out these plants as an independent genus and gave it the name "sequoia" in honor of Sequoia (Sequoyah, 1770–1843), an outstanding leader of the Iroquois, who invented the alphabet of the Teal tribe.

Due to the excellent wood and rapid growth, sequoia is specially grown in forestry. Light, dense, not susceptible to decay and insect attacks, sequoia wood is widely used as a building and carpentry material; it is used for the manufacture of furniture, sleepers, telegraph poles, railway cars, paper and roof tiles. The absence of smell allows its use in tobacco and food Industry. Of it make boxes and boxes for cigars and tobacco, barrels for storing honey and molasses. Due to the excellent wood and rapid growth, sequoia is specially grown in forestry. Sequoia is also used as an ornamental plant, planting it for this in gardens and parks.

Two other species are close to the evergreen sequoia, each of which is also the only representative of its kind. The first species is the giant sequoiadendron or mammoth tree (Sequoiadendron giganteum); the second type is metasequoia glipostrobus metasequoia (Metasequoia glyptostroboides).

The giant sequoiadendron or mammoth tree was named so because of the gigantic size and external similarity of its huge hanging branches to mammoth tusks. Evergreen sequoia and giant sequoia are outwardly similar, but at the same time they differ from each other in the form of leaves, the size of cones and a number of other signs.

Like the evergreen sequoia, the giant sequoia was widespread in the northern hemisphere at the end of the Cretaceous and in the Tertiary, now only about 30 small groves are preserved, located on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada in California at an altitude of 1,500-2,000 m above sea level.

The giant sequoiadendron was described in 1853, but after that its name changed several times. The appearance of the tree so impressed the Europeans that they began to appropriate the names of the greatest people of that time. So, the famous English botanist D. Lindley, who first described this plant, called it wellingtonia in honor of the Englishman Duke of Wellington, the hero of the Battle of Waterloo. The Americans, in turn, proposed the name Washington (or Washington sequoia) in honor of the first US president, D. Washington, who led the liberation movement against the British. But since the names Washington and Wellingtonia were already assigned to other plants, in 1939 this plant got its current name.

The giant sequoiadendron is an unusually majestic and monumental tree reaching a height of 80–100 m with a trunk diameter of 10–12 m. It is distinguished by longevity and can live, probably, up to 3 or even 4 thousand years.

Due to the strong, not decaying wood, sequoiadendrons in their homeland have been predatoryly exterminated since the time of the first explorers. The remaining old trees (and there are only about 500 of them) are declared protected. The largest sequoiadendrons have their own names: "Father of the Forests", "General Sherman", "General Grant" and others. These trees are real giants of the plant world. It is known, for example, that on the cut of one of them an orchestra and three dozen dancers fit freely, and cars pass through tunnels made in the lower parts of the trunks of some other trees. The weight of one of the largest of these trees, General Sherman, is about 2,995,796 kg.

Sequoiadendron as an ornamental plant is bred in many countries of the world, for example, it has perfectly taken root in the parks and gardens of southwestern Europe, where it was introduced back in the mid-19th century.

Sequoiadendrons are used not only for decorative purposes. Decay-resistant wood of sequoiadendron is used in construction work, for the manufacture of tiles and hedges. Thick tree bark (30-60 cm) is used as linings in fruit containers.

Sem. taxodium
Sequoiadendron giganteum

Giant sequoiadendron  or mammoth tree - a giant evergreen coniferous tree of gigantic size, having the outward resemblance of its huge hanging branches to mammoth tusks. The most tall tree  Nikitsky Botanical Garden.

His homeland is the Western slopes of the Sierra Nevada and warm California. And there, at home, this huge evergreen tree reaches 80–100 m  heights, since sequoiadendron is a very durable breed (it can live up to 5 thousand years). In the Nikitsky Botanical Garden, the size of these giants is much more modest than in their homeland, but, nevertheless, the tallest tree in the Garden, reaching 38 meters in height, is a giant sequoiadendron planted in the Upper Park in 1885. The diameter of the trunk of this mighty tree is about 2 meters.

This monumental tree has a regular wide pyramidal crown. Branching in young trees Very dense, in old trees the trunk is cleared of branches to a height of 50 m. The crust of red-brown, in deep cracks, is separated by plates. The needles are coarse, hard, dark green in color with a gray tint. Small cones (5–8 cm), oblong-ovate. Ripen by the end of the 2nd year.

The breed is slow-growing, especially in the first 10-15 years. Quite frost-resistant - tolerates short-term temperature drops to - 24–25 ° С. He loves loose, deep, fresh soils, but here, in the Crimea, on calcareous soils he feels rather well.

The wood is soft and not as valuable as that of an evergreen sequoia. However, it also does not burn in the fire.

The dryness of the Crimean summer air “taught” the tree to partially discard branches in particularly hot years, trying to reduce the area of \u200b\u200bmoisture evaporation. Funnel-shaped depressions along the entire trunk are traces of such “undressing”.

Sequoiadendrons were discovered relatively recently, since the mountain slopes of the ridge were inaccessible and only in 1850 the English traveler Lubb found the largest trees in the world. At first, these huge trees were called "California pines" or "mammoth trees", and later they began to use the designation of the Indians: the word "sequoia" is simply the name of this tree in the language of the Indians, but one of the Iroquois tribe chiefs, the inventor of Native American writing, had the same name .

In the Nikitsky Botanical Garden - since 1858.

The ancestors of mammoth trees lived on Earth 100 million years ago. Old specimens growing in California's protected groves are listed on the State Register by the names: “Thick Tree,” “Three Sisters,” “Pioneer Cabin,” etc. In 1881, in Yosemite Park, paving the way, in one sequoiadendron they were forced to make a tunnel through which buses freely pass.

At the end of the last century, a lightning bolt split the trunk of a tree at the base and it collapsed under its own weight. The weight of this trunk is more than 1000 tons. Stump diameter 23 m  received the name "Father of the Forest." In 1910, a room was cut out inside a stump and a cozy restaurant was placed in it. A spiral staircase around the stump allows you to climb to the top of the head, where in the summer the quartet plays country tunes, 16 pairs dance freely and there are enough space for 20 spectators around the perimeter.

When I. Ilf and E. Petrov, invited to America, visited Sequoia Park (occupies the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada), they wrote: “... we rode through an ancient gloomy forest, a fantastic forest, where the word“ man ”ceases to sound proudly, and only one word proudly sounds - “a tree ...”, I wanted to imagine that these trees grew peacefully when not only Columbus, but also Caesar, Alexander the Great, and even the Egyptian king Tutankhamun were not present ... ”

Currently, in California, there are no sequoiadendron trees older than 2 thousand years old. But according to scientists, they can live up to 6-7 thousand years.

SEQUOYADENDRON GIANT  (Sequoiadendron giganteum) also called a mammoth tree due to its gigantic size and the outward resemblance of its huge hanging branches to mammoth tusks, is undoubtedly the most famous representative.

Giant sequoiadendron is found in separate small groves (there are about 30 of them) only on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada in California (at an altitude of 1500-2000 m). The giant sequoiadendron was described in 1853. After the discovery of the Mammoth tree by Europeans, its name changed several times.


The giant sequoiadendron struck the imagination of the inhabitants of the Old World, and he was given the names of the greatest people. So, the famous English botanist D. Lindley, who first described this plant, calls it wellingtonia in honor of the Englishman Duke of Wellington, the hero of the Battle of Waterloo.

The Americans, in turn, proposed the name Washington (or Sequoia Washington), in honor of the first US President D. Washington. But since the names Washington and Wellingtonia were previously assigned to other plants, in 1939 this genus was named Sequoiadendron.

The giant sequoiadendron is an unusually majestic and monumental tree, reaching a height of 80-100 m, with a trunk up to 10 m in diameter, characterized by amazing longevity. The question of the maximum age of sequoiadendron is still unresolved: they also call 3 and 4 thousand years.
Due to the strong, not decaying wood, sequoiadendrons in their homeland have been predatoryly destroyed since the time of the first explorers and gold seekers. The trees remaining to date, and there are only about 500 of them, are declared protected.

The largest sequoiadendrons have their own names: "Father of the Forests", "General Sherman", "General Grant" and others. The first of them, now no longer existing, reached, as follows from his descriptions, a height of 135 m with a trunk diameter at the base of 12 m.


It is estimated that the Sequoiadendron, known as General Sherman, contains about 1,500 m3 of wood, with a height of 83 m and a trunk diameter of 11 m at the base of the tree.

To transport it would require a train of 20-25 wagons. An orchestra and three dozen dancers fit freely on the cut of another tree. Also known are tunnels made in the lower parts of the trunks (for example, such a tunnel has existed in Yosemite Park since 1881). Cars pass freely through it.


Sequoiadendron as a decorative plant is bred in many countries of the world. He is especially good at the age of 80-100 years with a dark green, correctly pyramidal crown starting from the ground and a translucent reddish trunk. With age, the correctness of the crown is violated, the trunk is exposed and thickened, and the tree takes on a monumental appearance.


Having been introduced to Europe as early as 1853, the sequoiadendron took root perfectly in the parks and gardens of its southwestern part. Its seeds came to our country in 1858. The first trees were planted in the Nikitsky Botanical Garden, then on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus and Central Asia.


And although under these conditions they grow more slowly than at home, however, they reach quite impressive sizes. So, seventy-year-old specimens grow to a height of 30 m or more (with a diameter of more than 1 m). Unlike sequoia ("mahogany"), Sequoiadendron is also called "mahogany from the Sierra."
(c) http://www.floranimal.ru/pages/flora/s/5581.html

Due to the strong, not decaying wood, sequoiadendrons in their homeland have been predatoryly destroyed since the time of the first explorers and gold seekers.


The trees remaining to date, and there are only about 500 of them, are declared protected. The largest sequoiadendrons have their own names: "Father of the Forests", "General Sherman", "General Grant" and others.

The first of them, now no longer existing, reached, as follows from his descriptions, a height of 135 m with a trunk diameter at the base of 12 m. It is estimated that the Sequoiadendron, known as the General Sherman, contains about 1,500 m3 of wood, with 83 m high and a trunk diameter of 11 m at the base of the tree. To transport it would require a train of 20-25 wagons.

John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt at National Park

Sequoia  - The second of the oldest national natural parks in the United States. It was established on September 25, 1890 to protect the sequoia dendrons in the Giant Forest, including the General Sherman Tree, currently the largest tree in the world. Sequoiadendron also grow in Mineral King Valley and Mt. Whitney - the highest mountains of the United States outside of Alaska.

A small portion of the current Kings Canyon National Park was called General Grant National Park in 1890. In 1940, the boundaries of the park expanded significantly, including the territory of the "South Fork of the Kings River" and more than 456 thousand acres of wild territory.


The total size of the national park, including the Sequoia park, now reaches just under 900 thousand acres.

People appeared and forests of giant saicas shortly after graduation civil war. The tree of General Grant was discovered in 1862 by Joseph Hardin Thomas, but in 1867 a certain name came up with a certain Lucretia Baker.

Five years later, on March 1, 1872, Ulysses Simpson Grant, the eighteenth president of the United States, approved a bill establishing the status of Yellowstone as the first national park in the world. A grove of giant (mammoth) Grant saicas, as well as Yosemite Park, were approved by the same law.

From the history of the park


Captain Charles Young, Military Leader, Sequoia National Park, 1903
by Wm. C. Tweed


The new military leader arrived at Sequoia National Park in the summer of 1903 and immediately faced many difficulties. Born in Kentucky during the Civil War, Charles Young was black, which was not welcome in those places.


He was the first African American to graduate. high school  for whites in Ripley, Ohio, and took part in a serious competition, as a result of victory in which he could enter the famous Military School at West Point in 1884.


He was a courageous and strong man and became the third black man to be educated in this prestigious educational institution. The conditions of this training were so harsh for him that he later wrote about what was the greatest test of his life.


In May 1903, National park  Sequoia was already thirteen years old, but he was still underdeveloped and inaccessible. Since 1891, the management and development of the park was placed under the responsibility of the US Army, but due to lack of funding by Congress, almost nothing was done and much was stolen. The main thing - it was expensive, the construction of which began only in 1900. But the work was carried out so slowly that in three years of work only 5 miles were laid.


Young immediately began paving new roads and expanding the old ones, which even small vans could not drive. Soon the road ran to the cliff of Moreau.
In 1904, Young was sent as a military attaché to Haiti. He later served in the same position in Liberia.
Young participated in the Expedition to Mexico in 1916. He died in 1923 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with all honors.


Although Colonel Charles Jung served in the Park for only one working season, his efforts were not forgotten. He was remembered for his energy, perseverance and dignity. Dear, built under his leadership, improved only slightly, are still serving.

Walter Fry: Famous Man
Malinee crapsey
(This article first appeared in The Sequoia Bark magazine in the summer of 1994)


"When I first met Judge Fry, under his own great old trees, I knew that I had met a rare man ..."


In 1888, Walter Fry first encountered giant seikvoyami, like a lumberjack, and was shocked. Having spent more than five days with a team of lumberjacks on cutting and dumping a single tree, he counted the annual layers on the trunk of a fallen giant.

He had to count several days and the answer was surprising: 3266 rings, that is 3266 years of life.

Two years later, local residents petitioned the US government for the capture of the great saikas under state protection. The third signature on the petition was that of Walter Fry.

President Grant

Park management moved the Fry family for several years from the San Joaquin Valley to the Trois-Riviera. Fry acted as traffic controller, and in 1905 he became a park ranger. By 1910, Fry became the leader of the rangers, managing the parks for military leadership.
In 1914, the Army finally departed from the leadership of the Park and Fpay was appointed its official civilian leader.

Mr. Fry's contribution to the development and improvement of the Park was so significant that in 1994 the Lodgepole Nature Center was named after him.

Giant Sequoia

In the world, sequoias grow in vivo only on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains, most often at altitudes between 5,000 and 7,000 feet.


In total there are no more than 75 groves.
General Sherman's tree is between 2300 and 2700 years old. Its largest branch is almost seven feet in diameter.

Sequoias grow from seeds so small and light that they look like oat flakes.

Take a closer look - on the branches of the giant there are ma-a-scarlet little men.

Translated autonomously from http://www.sequoia.national-park.com/info.htm#tree

Ten biggest giants:

Tree .................................... ....... Location ..... ......... Height (ft) Circum (ft)
1. General Sherman .............. Giant Forest ........ 274.9 ........ 102.6
2. Washington ....................... Giant Forest ........ 254.7 ........ 101.1
3. General Grant .................... Grant Grove ........ 268.1 ........ 107.6
4. President ............................ Giant Forest ....... 240.9 ......... 93.0
5. Lincoln ................................ Giant Forest ....... 255.8 ..... .... 98.3
6. Stagg ................................... Alder Creek ........ 243.0. ....... 109.0
7. Genesis ............................. Mountain Home..257.1 ......... 85.3
8. Boole .................................. Conver se Basin. 268.8 ....... .113.0
9. Ishi ...................................... Gi ant Kennedy ..... 248.1 ........ 105.1
10. Franklin ............................ Giant Forest ........ 223.8 ........ 94.8

From pre-park history:

To date, there has been debate among historians about who was the first European to see the Yosemite Valley. In the fall of 1833, Joseph Reddeford Walker (Joseph Reddeford Walker), perhaps the first to see the valley - in his subsequent records he said that he led a group of hunters that crossed the Sierra Nevada and came close to the edge of the valley, which went down "more than a mile. " His squad was also the first to appear in the grove of trees of the sequoia dendron Tuolomni, thus becoming the first non-native inhabitants who saw these giant trees.

Part of the territory of Sierra Nevada, where the park is located, has long been considered the border of the settlements of Europeans, traders, hunters and travelers. However, this status changed in 1848 with the discovery of gold deposits at the foot of the mountains in the west. From that moment on, trading activity in this territory increased sharply, provoking the California Gold Rush as a result. Visitors began to destroy the natural resources, due to which the Indian tribes lived.


The first authentically known white man to see the valley should be considered William P. Abrams, who on October 18, 1849, with his detachment accurately described some landmarks of the valley, but it is not known for certain whether he or any of his detachment entered this land. However, there is no doubt that in 1850 Joseph Screech actually went down to the Hatch-Hetchy Valley and, moreover, settled here.

The first systematic study of the park was carried out in 1855 by the team of Alexey W. Von Schmidt (Allexey W. Von Schmidt) in the framework of state program  land surveys "Public Land Survey System".

Mariposa Wars

Before the first Europeans appeared on this territory, the Indian tribes Sierra Miwok and the Paiute lived here. By the time the first settlers arrived here, a group of Indians who called themselves Ahwahnechee lived in the Yosemite Valley.


As a result of the sharp increase in the flow of immigrants during the gold rush, armed conflicts began to arise with local tribes. In order to put an end to the constant skirmishes, in 1851 government troops were sent to the valley - the Maripos battalion under the command of Major James Savage to persecute about 200 Avanichi Indians led by the leader of Tenaya. In particular, a physician, Lafayette Bunnell, was attached to the detachment, who later colorfully described his impressions of what he saw in The Discovery of the Yosemite. Bunnell is also credited with the authorship of the name of the valley, which he gave after a conversation with the leader of Tenai.


Bunnell wrote in his book that the leader of Tenai was the founder of the Pai-Ute colony of the Ah-wah-ne tribe. The Indians of the neighboring Sierra Mivok tribe (like the majority of the white inhabitants who settled here) described the Avanichi Indians as a warlike tribe with which they had constant territorial disputes, the name of this tribe “yohhe’meti” literally meant “they are killers”. Correspondence and notes written by the soldiers of the battalion contributed to the popularization of the valley and its surrounding territory.

Tenaya and the remains of Avanichi were captured, and their settlement was burned. The tribe was forcibly transferred to a reservation near the city of Fresno in California. Some were subsequently allowed to return to the valley, but after an attack on eight miners in 1852, they fled to the neighboring Mono tribe, which disrupted their hospitality and killed them.
(c) Weinheim