International Day of Forests

March 21

This commemoration-day was first established last year.

I visited Sequoia National Park ten years ago. It was an amazing experience to witness the grandiosity of that forest. I do love taking pictures of trees, but there I found that mission impossible; simply because they didn´t “fit” in the camera lenses. No trees anywhere on earth grow larger than the giant sequoias. Of these types of trees, “General Sherman”, named after the American Civil War general, is the largest specimen on the planet.

Over hundreds of thousands of years, the sequoia has adapted in order to survive. The most important of these transformations has to do with fire, given that lightning storms are frequent in the forest. The giant sequoia has nowadays several physical defences helping them cope with fire. For example, it has very thick and resistant bark, which is difficult to burn and protects the trees from the heat provoked by fires.

 

A beautiful Frangipani tree from the Caribbean islands.

See: O eucalipto