After we've discovered springs desired by the Americans, canyons with similar properties as those from the States, and quite a few more similar things offered by nature, some months ago we ended up exploring a tree that no doubt is very unique for Romania.
While the Sequoia trees are well known by pretty much anyone on this planet, the most popular place where you can find more than one and see them grow big and healthy without being bothered too much by human intervention is in the Sierra Mountains from Nevada, California.
Now I know this chain is proud to be a virtual home for many authors from the States and I bet they feel pretty familiar with this kind of tree, but as I said, it's hard to meet one in other parts of the globe and especially in Europe where everything is so much different from any other continent.
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Being so rare led to quickly becoming a point of interest for tourists, there already existing road signs showing the direction to it. While there are plenty of more popular tourist attractions in Romania that don't enjoy proper guidance towards them, things are quite the opposite for The Sequoia Tree, yet a great thing considering that we found out about this tree around two years ago and even if it's not too famous already there have been made the right steps towards the direction of making it more popular.
Like in most cases, this can have only two situations. Such as either leading many tourists here to visit it daily and respect it for being unique in Romania or making the tree meet some less respectful human beings that are well known for polluting or destroying what nature offers at no cost. Hopefully, we won't face the 2nd category.
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The Sequoia Trees are known as being amongst the biggest creations of nature left on earth which can reach even 145 meters in height and live until they are 5000 years old. While in Nevada you are most likely to find this species of tree under more sizes and ages, Romania has just a few Sequoia trees, the one from the current post still being a junior having just a bit over 100 years old.
Even if this tree is still in its childhood, its size is already making waves among the rest of the trees nearby, and it is considered the tallest tree in Romania right now. Can't wait to see it grow even bigger!
The circumference of the stem is not less impressive, being able to reach 38 meters in diameter which would require around 15 people surrounding it. I, along with my parents tried to surround the Sequoia baby we have on this part of Romania and we would still need 4 more people to embrace it entirely. So it must only be at half of its potential.
Planting a Sequoia tree and offering it everything it needs for a long life forward is not that easy, being a species that is recognized as a monument of nature. This is also the main reason why the one we visited was surrounded by an improvised fence so there won't be planted other trees nearby and take its resources.
There was also a little board encouraging the visitors to vote The Sequoia Tree from Romania as the tree of the year, pushing it a bit more forward to be discovered by more people.
Unfortunately, this board must have been there for a while as the first website is not working anymore and the 2nd one comes only with information about it but with no voting session.
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The story behind this tree, or better said, how it ended up growing up on the Romanian lands, is that there was a baron who had a castle and was very dedicated to art, who's name was Dietrich Jozse. Along with his passions, he was also interested in trees ending up on a vacation in California in 1845 from where he returned home with three redwood tree saplings that were planted close to his house.
While the Sequoia trees are well known for needing at least 10 meters depth of soil and be planted at an altitude of around 2,000 meters, the man decided to give it a try and plant them on the highest hill from the village where he was living, even if the soil only had 2 meters in depth and the altitude was not the same with the requested one.
The trees showed a lot more determination than anyone would expect and did adapt to the only 2 meters depth of soil, growing up in no time until one of them was hit by a thunderbolt and fell. The other two resisted and they can be seen in Rogojel Village from Cluj county, Romania, being linked to each other which makes them seem like a single tree.
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Even if this Sequoia Tree has already reached an imposing height that should offer him resistance in front of bad weather conditions, having just 2 meters in depth of soil where he can expand his roots makes him weak from time to time. That's also what happened quite recently when after a few days of heavy rain, lighting, and powerful wind, one of the main branches was taken down.
This offered us a better closeup of how everything looks on the inside, being the first time I had seen a tree with a red interior, but it made me feel sad thinking that perhaps this tree won't reach a long and beautiful life as those from Nevada, California.
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Either way, I still took some time to lay down on the feet of this tree thinking that maybe one day things would change and become a common thing to have the Sequoia trees in Romania and Europe too. On the right is also attached an image with a park of Sequoia trees for a better understanding of how young the one from Romania is. The source of the image is here.
The Sequoia Tree from Romania is located 80 km away from Cluj-Napoca at the foot of the Apuseni Mountains between Săcuieu and Rogojel villages. The route that we followed was Cluj-Napoca – Huedin – Bologa – Săcuieu – Rogojel.
There are saying that Romania has 6 more Sequoia Trees planted in more parts of the country, but the one we visited is the biggest one out of all, already exceeding 35 meters in height.
Other articles from my Romania Tour 2023:
- The Blue Lagoon of Cluj (Laguna Albastră)
- Ciucaș Waterfall... or beer? (Cascada Ciucaș)
- The Sequoia Tree from Romania
more coming soon...
Gabriela Travels is the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences. At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe. Additionally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (260+ articles written on this field), but also abording other topics as well, like game reviews, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 550+ blog posts. Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, editing, cooking, and doing various sports activities.
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