sequoia

/səˈk(w)ɔɪə/

/sɪˈkɔɪə/

Other forms: sequoias

A sequoia is an ancient, towering redwood tree that grows on the coast of northern California and southern Oregon. Sequoias are the largest trees on Earth.

Before commercial logging destroyed many of them, giant sequoias covered the entire coast of California, filling about two million acres of forest. The remaining trees are among the very oldest things on our planet; some are more than 2,000 years old. Sequoias are massive evergreens, the largest of which is as tall as a 30-story building. The sequoia was named after the Cherokee man, Sequoya, who invented a written form of the Cherokee language in the 1820s.

Definitions of sequoia

1. noun

   either of two huge coniferous California trees that reach a height of 300 feet; sometimes placed in the Taxodiaceae
   synonyms: redwood

   types:

   California redwood, Sequoia sempervirens, coast redwood

   lofty evergreen of United States coastal foothills from Oregon to Big Sur; it flourishes in wet, rainy, foggy habitats

   Sequoia Wellingtonia, Sequoia gigantea, Sequoiadendron giganteum, Sierra redwood, big tree, giant sequoia

   extremely lofty evergreen of southern end of western foothills of Sierra Nevada in California; largest living organism

   type of:

   cypress

   wood of any of various cypress trees especially of the genus Cupressus