Пalo Альто: Тарихи секвоя ағашы

Historic coast redwood in Palo Alto, California

El Palo Alto (Spanish: 'the tall stick') is a coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) located on the banks of the San Francisquito Creek in Palo Alto, California, a city in the San Francisco Bay Area. The namesake of the city and a historical landmark, El Palo Alto is years old and stands 110 feet (34 m) tall. Before European arrival, the land around El Palo Alto was home to the Ohlone Native Americans. Local folklore holds that El Palo Alto was a rest stop for the first European expedition that discovered San Francisco Bay, led by Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portolá in 1769. The tree became widely known with the early 1850s establishment of a highway between San Francisco and San Jose, and as a landmark along the San Francisco–San Jose railroad, construction of which passed the tree in 1863. In 1876, Leland Stanford, co founder of Stanford University along with his wife Jane Lathrop Stanford, purchased land near El Palo Alto. Early images and accounts indicate that El Palo Alto once had two trunks. It lost one trunk before 1883—the exact date is unknown—perhaps due to heavy rainfall and erosion of the riverbank. Fearing the tree's total loss, Leland Stanford directed that the riverbank be reinforced with a wooden bulkhead, which was replaced with concrete abutments in 1904 and again in 1911. Train soot suffocated the leaves of the tree's upper limbs, nearby wells lowered the water table, and by the late 1920s the tree was declared moribund. Although it has decreased in stature by some 15.24 m since the late 1800s, El Palo Alto was ultimately saved by the continuous preservation efforts of the city, local arborists, Stanford University, and Southern Pacific (the owner of the adjacent railroad); a 1997 appraisal concluded that the tree would "persevere and grow for centuries to come". El Palo Alto is featured prominently on the City of Palo Alto logo and the Stanford University seal, and is recognized by the National Arborist Association and International Society of Arboriculture as a tree of historical importance.

El Palo Alto is a coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), a giant and long lived tree species only found near the North American Pacific coast. The world's tallest trees are coast redwoods, with the record holder, Hyperion, reaching 115.82 m. El Palo Alto is not so tall, at about 33.53 m nor is El Palo Alto particularly old; the longest lived redwoods may approach 2,500 years in age. Redwoods generally require wet climates like those found close to the coast, The tree's location next to San Francisquito Creek provided it the necessary water to survive. Prior to European contact, the Ramaytush speaking subgroup of the Ohlone people lived near to the tree, in the village of Puichon.

Location map many|United States San Francisco Bay Area|lat1 deg=37.4473|lon1 deg= 122.1702|label1=El Palo Alto|lat2 deg=37.6075|lon2 deg= 122.4625|label2=Sweeney Ridge|caption=Portola's expedition went up the Pacific coast, crossed east at Sweeney Ridge, They traveled southwest and arrived at San Francisquito Creek on November 6, 1769, where they camped until November 11. In 1776, A 1777 map of the bay by Font indicated a large tree on San Francisquito Creek.

[[File:Evening passenger train on the San Francisco San Jose railroad, crossing south San Francisquito Creek. png|thumb|1860s drawing of El Palo Alto by Edward Vischer The highway passed close to El Palo Alto and likely brought it to prominence. The tree was nearly cut down in 1850, but was saved by a timely shipment of lumber. El Palo Alto was first known as the Palos Colorados, the name "Rancho of Palo Alto" was used as a disambiguation in 1857. The Southern Pacific Transportation Company purchased the company in March 1868; the tree was featured in Southern Pacific advertising. Edward Vischer's Pictorial of California (1870) contains a drawing of the tree with two trunks, noting it to be "one of the very few instances of that mountain monarch [the redwood] being found in the open level country", and suggests that the tree originally had three trunks, describing it as "[t]wins, once a trio".

El Palo Alto had two trunks until some time between 1875 when the north, more curved trunk fell. The San Francisquito Creek's eroding banks further threatened El Palo Alto. Fearing its loss, after the first trunk fell, Leland Stanford directed a wooden bulkhead to be built reinforcing the tree's side of the creek. In 1904 Jane Stanford ordered the building of a cement wall, which was further reinforced around 1909 by Southern Pacific. Early Stanford students had a tradition of climbing the tree and placing a flag as high as possible. The day before admissions day of 1909, a Stanford student (or possibly an employee) was marooned and had to be rescued by other students at night time, marking the last known climb. Nearby wells and water being taken from San Francisquito Creek lowered the water table, depriving the tree of needed water. Stanford botany professor George James Peirce already found in 1901 that the tree's crown was seriously injured, that the railway had caused changes in the nearby soil's drainage, and that a "thicket of suckers" was present around the tree, akin to those seen "around the stump of a felled or fallen redwood of advanced age." In 1915 Peirce planted seven redwoods on university grounds so that one of them could succeed El Palo Alto following its death. Six remain—one was crushed as a sapling by a lawnmower. The Native Sons of the Golden West, an organization dedicated to the preservation of California landmarks, took stewardship of the tree in 1920. Southern Pacific leased the tree to the Native Sons in 1922 and in 1925 the surrounding land was converted into a park, now El Palo Alto Park. University tree surgeons filled decayed cavities with cement and the tree's base was irrigated using six inch pipes, sunk eight feet into the earth at regular intervals. Southern Pacific hooked up guy wires to stabilize the tree. Fearing the tree's death, the Native Sons placed a plaque set in a granite boulder under the tree in 1926, in a ceremony attended by more than a thousand people and featuring speeches from the mayor, a Stanford professor, a Southern Pacific representative, and several Native Sons. Despite continuous preservation efforts, by the late 1920s newspapers declared the tree moribund. The top of the tree continued to die and measurements in 1950 found a height of 41.15 m, compared to 49.38 m in 1930.