[Laforet]

There is a tendency to draw the silhouette of a tree with roots the same size as the canopy but this image is wrong. The root system of most plants run much shallower than people assume because there is no oxygen in deep soil to sustain the roots. A 300 feet giant Sequoia would only reach 12 to 15 feet into the ground.

[gumby]

(You have the perfect username to be talking about trees)

I was shocked by the shallowness of a sequoia root system (though have never thought of any roots being as deep as their tree is tall!). It feels like the centre of mass would be too high for stability.

The trick is the width of the root system, especially plate roots, which can be over 40X the width of the trunk, and can interlock with neighbouring trees forming a stablising matrix.

There are almost fully underground trees which allows them to survive fire (they just lose the photosynthesising top) and also survive where grasslands have driven out forest cover. I know these trees exist in Africa, but don’t know if they live elsewhere.

I would think of these as “bushes” but really there’s no difference between a shrub and a tree except in the eye of the beholder.

[Laforet]

Yes, sequoia are lucky to be able to rely on each other for support. There are many species of trees are technically capable of growing to hundreds of feet tall but they are invariably lost to strong wind and lightning strikes long before that point.

[flavius29663]

Sequoia is a special case though. They can afford to be so shallow because the live in families, and all the roots in the forest intertwine and they help each other stay upright. Other forests are not that intertwined. I only knew about that rule (mirror the branches) when it comes to oaks in particular. Other trees have evolved differently: palms will dig for water deep down for example.