Scott Rhoat, age 11, of Mntgomery, Pa., or his question;

How big is a redwood seed?

Suppose you plan to raise your own grove of redwoods. Since the great trees are conifers, you could start your ambitious project from seeds. If you order one ounce, you get about 7700 rusty brown seeds. Each seed is about as big as a pinhead. Possibly they fell from a 2000 year old parent tree, standing 260 feet tall. With special care, a few of your tiny seeds may sprout. But it is not possible to raise a grove of mature redwood trees in Pennsylvania. They survive only in certain parts of California.

A redwood tree is ready to shed its first seeds at the age of 70. The brown cones among the lacy, pale green foliage are about one inch wide. A few seeds ripen under each of the crusty scales and fall to the ground.

A parent tree reaches maturity at 300 years and continues to shed millions of seeds every season for several thousand years.

In 2000 years or so, a California redwood weighs 1000 tons and may stand more than 350 feet tall. One would suspect that the stupendous tree must sprout from a super sized seed. Not at all. It started from a seed that measured about one sixteenth of an inch. About 123,000 of these rusty brown, pinhead sized seeds weigh about one pound. It is estimated that only one in a billion seeds has a chance to grow in the parent grove.

This is because these huge trees require very special growing condi¬tions, which are not favorable to their seeds and seedlings. The magnificent California redwoods – sequoias empervirens, or ever living grow among California's Coast Range. Their groves crowd beside streams and on certain slopes.

There the prevailing winds from across the wide Pacific are forced to change their vapor into misty moisture. During the dry season, when the rest of the state basks under summer sunshine, the tops of the redwoods are lost in cloudy gray mists. moisture condenses onto their pale green needles and drips to the ground. The paths through the ferny forest floor are  damp and spongy.

The lowest boughs of the redwoods areabout 100 feet above the ground. But only a few shafts of light penetrate throughtheir lofty crowns. Though the great trees stand close together, each has a shallow root system, often spreading through more than three acres. Theforest floor is a matted tan¬gle of thirsty roots, strewn with fallen conifer needles.

Only a few plant species can survive in the misty floor under the ma¬jestic old redwood trees. Seedlings need airy light and plenty of rich soil. In their parent's grove only onein a billion redwood seeds has a chance to sprout and survive. The rest are lost and finally decay on the forest floor.

The giant redwoods sequoia gigantea grow farther inland, in California's Sierra Nevada. They too sprout from pinhead sized seeds and thrive under similar conditions. They are not so tall, but they live longer than the coastal redwoods. The famous sequoia named General Grant sprouted 3500 years ago. It stands more than 267 feet tall and is still growing.

The tallest known coastal redwood is 368 feet  tall and still growing at the age of about 2000 years.