Lindsey Creek tree facts for kids

The Lindsey Creek French Tree is the largest single-stem organism (tree) known to have existed historically. It was a coast redwood (also known as California redwood), a member of the species Sequoia sempervirens. It grew in Fieldbrook, California, along the Lindsey Creek, which feeds into the Mad River.

When it was uprooted and felled by a storm in 1905, its mass and dimensions were estimated, with a weight of at least 3,630 short tons, 3.3 million kilograms, or 7.26 million pounds and trunk volume of at least 2,550 cubic meters (90,000 cubic feet).

If these estimates were correct, this would have made it close to twice the size (in volume) of the largest living single-stem tree, the giant sequoia known as General Sherman; nearly triple that of the largest living coast redwood, Grogan's Fault, and having a trunk volume five times larger than the tallest of its species existing today, the Hyperion, only ten feet shorter at 380.1 feet—necessarily calling the measurements into doubt.

Johnson claims

Skip Johnson, a Fieldbrook logger interviewed in 1971, testified that he witnessed the Lindsey Creek Tree after it had fallen. He reported it as the tallest tree in Fieldbrook. He stated that a family member measured its diameter at 19 ft (5.8 m) at 130 ft (40 m) off the ground, and 9+1⁄2 ft (2.9 m) at 260 ft (79 m) off the ground, and its total height slightly exceeded 390 ft (120 m). Fairly solid evidence indicates that coast redwoods were the world's largest trees before logging, with numerous historical specimens reportedly over 400 ft (122 m). Hyperion, another coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), currently the tallest, is 115.85 m (380.1 ft), which also makes it the world's tallest known living tree.