Sister Parks, Sequoia Or Kings Canyon National Park

Did you know that some of the biggest living things on Earth can get to forty feet in diameter, stand over 200 feet tall and weigh over 2 million pounds? If you have ever seen, been to or heard of Sequoia or Kings Canyon National Forest, you would know what I’m talking about. The Sister Parks as the national forests are sometimes referred to, is home to more than 1,500 plants including trees and shrubs. The Sister Parks, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park is home to several different kinds of plants from ground hugging plants to the tallest trees.

The plants that bloom vary at each elevation; the blooming season begins in February in the lowland and last until early fall in the higher areas and mountains. There is more than fifty different
They get the evergreen name because they are green year-round and never lose their needles. Conifers are also one of the two main types of trees in the park. The jeffrey and ponderosa pines are found at lower elevations. The ponderosa pine bark is like a jigsaw puzzle. It lives in lower elevations and can get up to six feet in diameter. The jeffrey pine is similar to the ponderosa pine but lives at higher elevations with the sugar pine which has large pine cones, short needles and reddish bark and can get to seven feet in diameter. Pines that are higher than the jeffrey and sugar are called lodgepole and whitebark. The lodgepole is spread around the U.S. The whitebark has purple-tinted cones and is sticky. Red firs can be found at two different elevations, have two different cone and needle lengths and two different colors. Found at the highest elevation is the foxtail pine that has adapted to rocky life atop. There are several different kinds of trees, too many to put in here really. The biggest trees are the park’s giant sequoias which can live for 2,000 plus years, weigh over 2 million pounds, stand over 300 feet tall and be over 40 feet in diameter. These trees can comfortably fit and fifteen story building underneath the first branches which are 150 feet off the ground. The sequoias have cones with thousands of oatmeal size seeds and it take a fire to dry them out enough to release the seeds.They can be found at
Another low-lying shrub that has sticky leaves, a pungent smell and found at elevations of 7,000 to 8,000 feet is the Bear clover. Smooth, red-to-purple bark and oval, coin-sized, leaves is the mariposa manzanita which blooms year-round and is the only common manzanita in this region; it produces small, white and pink clusters of flowers that eventually turn into apple-like berries. Manzanita means apple in Spanish. Some shrubs grow in trees and take the nourishment and act as a pest rather than a shrub is called mistletoe, even with it’s holiday like name. All the plants are needed for the wildlife to survive. Even if some shrubs take the nutrients from trees, the trees have got to come down at some point. Some shrubs may be good for the economy like chaparral and others might not be so good. (The Flora)

There might not be all that many known shrubs but if people continue to introduce invasive plants, there might one day be a whole lot more. Some shrubs might be poisonous and others might be shrubs that the Native Americans have used as healing herbs. With a shrub that has berries that look like apples, they might be mistaken for an apple in early spring and summer only they are a berry looking