The Unlikely Survival of the 1,081 Year-Old Redwood El Palo Alto | Hacker News Reader

The Unlikely Survival of the 1,081 Year-Old Redwood El Palo Alto

nytimes.com

141 pointsigonvalue26 comments

I used to live in a condo building directly across the street from El Palo Alto. Walked by it every morning. Like the article says, it's in a small park right next to the Caltrain tracks, and you probably wouldn't take notice of it unless you already knew about it. I didn't know a lot of the history that this article provided, though... I love the thought of a >1k year old living thing just standing there inconspicuously.

Ditto! Man that was a great spot to live so much to walk to nearby and you have a caltrain stop right there.

I remember walking through that tiny park reading the usual signs when I read the Palo Alto one. Its very unassuming and I was so surprised I had to look it up and verify I had it right.

Walked by it every day! I remember reading that if high speed rail ever does materialize (and that's a big, big if..) they'd have to do something about the track positions and the tree.

I have walked past that tree probably more than a hundred times and I never knew it was that old or the originator of the name of the city. Its not very tall or massive, unlike the giant trees in the park on Lytton Ave. I always liked that big and tall condo building there - with big balconies facing the tree - was it fun to live in that bldg ?

I used to drive by that park all the time (driving to San Mateo from Palo Alto down Alma, much easier than dealing with El Camino traffic) and never knew that was there.

It never occurred to me that Palo Alto means Tall Stick(Tree) even though I knew Alto meant tall.

If it makes you feel better, it never occurred to me either, and I know the meaning of both Palo and Alto

Just wait until you see the Stanford logo.

http://identity.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/SU_N...

Isn't Stanford's tree a Sequoia, which is different from a Redwood?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Tree

"The "Tree" is representative of El Palo Alto, the tree that appears on both the official seal of the University and the municipal seal of Palo Alto, Stanford's nearby city."

The coastal redwood is sequoia sempervirens.

The giant sequoia is sequoiadendron giganteum.

So depending on how you look at it, either species is or ain’t a sequoia or vice versa or both.

As noted in another comment, the genus of the redwood is Sequoia. The trees with the common name sequoia (which are a different genus) tend to be shorter than redwoods but also much thicker in their trunks. They are native to the mountains further inland (you'll find them in Yosemite as well as (unsurprisingly) Sequoia/King's Canyon National Park). I'm pretty sure that the Stanford tree is, in fact, a Sequoia and not a sequoia.

Same! Even though I knew the words palisades, impale, the phrase "beyond the pale" (beyond the fence).

All the same derivation.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pale#Etymology_2_2

Pole in English = Paal in Dutch = Palo in Spanish

Not really, "palo" means "stick" in spanish.

Pole = Poste.

"Pole" in English is derived [1] from the Latin palus (from whence "palo"). The archaic English word "pale" (also meaning stick or stake) survives in the expression "beyond the pale."

[1]https://www.etymonline.com/word/pole

That's a neat etymological fact I wasn't completely aware of, but in today's spanish "palo" doesn't mean "pole" nor "poste", it just means "stick".

I believe we are talking about two different things, because I'm only clarifying the current meaning of the word.

Poste is post... pole and stick can refer to the same thing.

https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/palo

I live right next to this tree. Interestingly, the city of Palo alto also has some electrical plumbing attached to this tree. Not sure if it's for the tree's health or just some connections for the nextdoor train tracks.

The article actually talks about a misting system set up a few decades ago for the tree since coastal redwoods can take in a lot of their water from fog. It didn't make clear what the current status of that system was or I missed that part.

Redwoods are notoriously water hungry (and thus sometimes out of favor these days as part of landscaping these days), so it would not be surprising to install some help for this one.

The Seattle Times appears to host a copy of the same article without a paywall (at least I'm not getting one):

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/the-unlikely-survi...

I grew up on the East Coast, so my first trip to Big Basin Redwoods State Park [0] was awe-inspiring. I'm glad to see this tree surviving so far from its preferred environment.

[0] http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=540

I also grew up on the East Coast.

My first "real" job out of University had me pinball around the continental US, which eventually lead me to California.

When I drove down from Washington [state], I passed through a grove of Redwoods. Having never been to California and never seen live and in person Redwood trees before, I took a few minutes to pull over and chill.

Clearly an experience I still remember.

Big Basin is mostly closed just now after the CZU fire, but I can recommend Henry Woods [1] if you are visiting Mendocino.

[1] https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=438

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