The GREAT TREE Thread ! !

Researchers are discovering that the giant trees can alter their environments, both on the ground and in their complex canopies hundreds of feet in the air.

"You essentially have two ends that take in water -- at the top and the bottom," Dawson said. "That breaks all the rules ... and may explain how they can achieve these great heights."

Some redwoods have lived since the days of Jesus Christ. With time, their immense, complex canopies trap needles, dust and seeds, creating peaty soil mats a yard thick and as big as a bus that grow plants, sustain animals and absorb water hundreds of feet above the ground.

"Eventually, you get this huge sponge that builds up," said Steve Sillett, a Humboldt State professor who began studying the phenomena in redwoods in 1996. "During most of the year, it's an aquatic environment up there" fed by rain and fog.

He's discovered mollusks, crustaceans and other animals ordinarily found in stream beds -- even the wandering salamander, which lacks lungs and must stay moist to absorb oxygen through its skin.

Like trees in the Pacific Northwest and other temperate rain forests and cloud forests, the redwoods sprout canopy roots from their branches that Sillett believes take in water and nutrients from the hidden gardens.