While in Oregon last week, I was able to take a day trip south to California and visit Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, the northernmost location in a string of redwood parks stretching up California’s northern coast. Most of the park consists of an old growth forest, which had never been logged, giving the forest a primeval feel. It is unsurprising then, that one of the park’s groves contains four of the ten largest coast redwoods measured, including one called “Del Norte Titan”, which is almost 24 feet in diameter and more than 300 feet tall.

Coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens), also called coastal redwoods and California redwoods, are the only living species in the genus Sequoia. They are generally found at fairly low elevations (100 to 2,400 feet above sea level) in hilly areas where there is extensive moisture coming in off the ocean, and annual precipitation totals are high (up to 100 inches a year). On the day of our visit, it rained intermittently, but even when the sun was shining, so much moisture had been captured in the tree canopy that it continued to “rain” on us anyway. Such moments, however, did produce remarkable rays of sunlight that lit up all the droplets as the light passed through the branches.

Coast redwoods tend to grow in a forest community that also includes coast Douglas fir, Pacific madrone, and western hemlock, along with a wide variety of ferns, mosses, mushrooms, and redwood sorrel. I’ll focus on just two of the plant species associated with coast redwoods here: redwood sorrel and western sword fern.

Redwood sorrel, (Oxalis oregana), although larger than the common yellow wood sorrel we have on Cape Cod, appeared fairly similar at first glance, especially since it was not flowering at this time of year. It was extremely abundant, and formed a fairly lush ground cover layer. Upon closer inspection, however, the redwood sorrel is quite different than our Massachusetts varieties in that its undersides are bright purple. But, like the common yellow wood sorrel, the redwood sorrel leaves are edible, and in my opinion have a more pleasant lemony flavor than the sorrel at home.

Western sword fern, (Polystichum munitum), is one of the most abundant ferns in western North America. Its dark green fronds can grow more than 5.5 feet tall, and in fact, the fern pictured below was about as tall as I am (5’2”), giving the western sword fern a prehistoric feel. Western sword ferns have pinnae ½ to 6 inches long alternately arranged along on the stalk. Each pinna (i.e. leaflet-like feature) has a small upward-pointing lobe at the base, resembling the hilt of a sword, from which the plant gets its name. The edges of each pinna are serrated with bristly tips. On the underside of the fronds, round sori (the fern’s spore producing structures) form two rows on either side of the midrib.

Having recently finished reading The Sound of the Wild Snail Eating, I was excited to see so many banana slugs (Ariolimax columbianus) throughout the park. The slugs I saw were approximately 2-3 inches in length, but banana slugs can grow up to 8 inches in length and live up to 7 years. Its fitting that one of the world’s largest slugs would find its home among some of the world’s largest trees. Interestingly, they eat a little bit of everything in the redwood forest, including live plants, fallen leaves, fungi, and dead animals, but never the redwoods themselves.