The plant has been traditionally thought to protect against thunderstorms, and grown on house roofs for that reason, which is why it is called House Leek. Many of its popular names in different languages reflect an association with the Roman thunder-god Jupiter, notably the Latin barba Jovis (Jupiter's beard), referred to in the Floridus traditionally attributed to Aemilius Macer, and its French derivative joubarbe, which has in turn given rise to jubard and jo-barb in English; or with the Norse thunder-god Thor as in German Donnerbart. It is also called simply thunder-plant. Anglo-Saxon þunorwyrt may have either meaning. However, the association with Jupiter has also been derived from a resemblance between the flowers and the god's beard; in modern times, it has also been called St. George's beard.
Other common names, such as Anglo-Saxon singrēne, Modern English sigrim, sil-green, etc. and aye-green, refer to its longevity. William Fernie tells a tale in support of this:
History relates that a botanist tried hard for eighteen months to dry a plant of the House Leek for his herbarium, but failed in this object. He afterwards restored it to its first site when it grew again as if nothing had interfered with its ordinary life.
It has been believed to protect more generally against decay and against witchcraft. Jacob Grimm quotes a Provençal troubadour: "e daquel erba tenon pro li vilan sobra lur maiso" — "and that plant they keep against evil atop their house." In his Capitulare de villis vel curtis imperii, Charlemagne recommended it be grown on top of houses. In some places, S. tectorum is still traditionally grown on the roofs of houses.
The juice has been used in herbal medicine as an astringent and treatment for skin and eye diseases, including by Galen and Dioscorides, to ease inflammation and, mixed with honey, to treat thrush; however, large doses have an emetic effect. Pliny also mentions it, and Marcellus Empiricus listed it as a component in external treatments for contusions, nervous disorders, intestinal problems and abdominal pain, and mixed with honey, as part of the antidotum Hadriani (Hadrian's antidote), a broad-spectrum palliative for internal complaints.
Romans grew the plant in containers in front of windows and associated it with love medicine.


Senecio flaccidus, formerly recorded as Senecio douglasii (in honor of the botanist David Douglas), member of the daisy family and genus Senecio  also known as threadleaf ragwort (and threadleaf groundsel, bush senecio, creek senecio, shrubby butterweed, comb butterweed, smooth threadleaf ragwort, Mono ragwort, Douglas ragwort, Douglas groundsel, sand wash groundsel, felty groundsel, old man, yerba cana, squawweed or cenicillo), is a native of the southwestern Great Plains of North America.


Threadleaf ragwort is a fast-growing, short-lived (3 to 6 years) bushy perennial shrub growing to 4 feet 6 inches (1.37 m); common in gravelly washes, dry creek beds, along roads and trails and mostly away from the coast.
Leaves and Stems
Branched and bushy, Senecio flaccidus gets its common name from its white, threadlike, bent and matted, tomentose leaves; alternate and deeply pinnated, divided into five to nine narrow linear segments, glabrous, having no hairs or projections, gray-green above, 1 inch (2.5 cm) to 4 inches (10 cm) long. The principal leaves often have auxiliary clusters of smaller leaves.  The stems are grooved and the branches are thin, herbaceous above and woody near the base.
Flowers
Showy flowering heads of yellow ray flowers, 3 inches (7.6 cm) – 4 inches (10 cm) across; eight to thirteen sterile rays, purplish brown disk florets that produce the seeds.
Seeds
Dicotyledon fruits; each a 1/8 inch (3 mm) long achene ribbed and hoary, covered with short white hairs.


Colonizing disturbed areas including over-grazed lands, Senecio flaccidus helps to achieve a quick ground cover and helps to stabilize the soil for longer-lived perennials but in this situation makes poor foraging for cattle and horses due to the alkaloids contained in the plant which cause liver disease when consumed in large quantities.
Also known as Senecio longilobus, one of the alkaloids found in this species is longilobine, as well as senecionine, seneciphylline, florosenine, otonecine-based florosenine, and retrorsine.


Like many Senecio Senecio flaccidus likes disturbed habitats, this one preferring overgrazed rangelands, dried up stream beds and desert grasslands; at altitudes above 1,800 feet (550 m) and below 6,500 feet (2,000 m).
Native
America
North-Central: Kansas, Oklahoma
Northwestern: Colorado
South-Central: New Mexico, Texas
Southwestern: Arizona, Utah
Northern Mexico: Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, San Luis Potosí, Sonora, Zacatecas
Central Mexico: Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Jalisco (n.e.), Veracruz
Current
America
North-Central: Kansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming
Northwestern: Colorado
South-Central: New Mexico, Texas
Southwestern: Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah
Northern Mexico: Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, San Luis Potosí, Sonora, Zacatecas, Baja California
Central Mexico: Aguascalientes, Baja Norte, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Jalisco (n.e.), Veracruz


Senecio glastifolius is a species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common names woad-leaved ragwort, holly-leaved senecio, and pink ragwort. A tall perennial herb, it is native to southern Africa, and it is cultivated as an ornamental plant for its colorful flowers. It has been known to escape cultivation and become naturalized in areas of appropriate climate; it can be found growing wild in parts of New Zealand and Australia.
It favours a Mediterranean climate, often coastal, typically colonizing disturbed soil. It is an annual herb producing a single, erect, branching stem which grows to a height 1 to 1.5 metres tall. The serrated leaves are often more coarsely toothed near the leaf base, and feel prickly. The inflorescence bears flower heads lined with black-tipped bracts. They contain a yellowish disc at the centre, with mauve petals.
Senecio glastifolius is sometimes confused with Senecio elegans, (which also grows by the coast), but the leaves of the two species are different.


Senecio inaequidens, known as narrow-leaved ragwort and South African ragwort, is a species of flowering plant in the daisy family Asteraceae.


Senecio inaequidens is a perennial chamaephyte up to 1 m in height, often much ramified, with each stem ending in one or a few capitula yellow in colour, forming a loose floral display. A single plant produces 26 to 500 capitula each year, with approximately 90 florets, 74% of them developing a viable achene.
The leaves are linear, entire or almost so and without petioles.
S. inaequidens exists as a diploid genotype and a tetraploid cytotype.
Initially the diploid S. madagascarensis and S. harveianus were assumed to be different species; however molecular analysis showed that they only differ in cytotype.


It is native to Southern Africa, including Lesotho, South Africa, Eswatini, Namibia, Mozambique and Botswana.


In its native habitat S. inaequidens occurs at elevations from sea level to 2,850 m in a wide range of naturally or anthropogenically disturbed habitats such as river banks, rocky slopes, heavily grazed or recently burned grasslands, and road verges. The tetraploid cytotype was only found in the uKhalhamba and Maloti mountain ranges, and this is the cytotype of S. inaequidens which was inadvertently exported to Europe.


The plant is a widespread neophyte in Europe and an invasive species in Central Europe. It was introduced through wool imports from Southern Africa. In Europe the ports of entry were Bremen, Calais, Mazamet, and Verviers.
S. inaequidens commonly exists in ruderal habitats such as railroads, roads and motorways, vacant or disused land. Plants can be seen on disused land as pioneer species but so far often disappear in an ecological succession. In Central Europe where it first spread, the plant so far seems to use previously unused ecological niches. There does not seem a clear advantage over native vegetation, except in higher altitude. In the European Alps ecologists and farmers are worried that it has the advantage of invading grazing fields on the alm pastures. The furthest north it was found was Norway. S. inaequidens is also present in Korea and Taiwan.
In South America and Australia the diploid variant S. madagascariensis is highly invasive.


Senecio inaequidens contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids having hepatotoxic properties that are poisonous to mammals.


Senecio integerrimus is a species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common names lambstongue ragwort and tall western groundsel. It is native to western and central North America, where it grows in grassland, forest, and other habitat. It is a biennial or perennial herb producing one or a few erect stems 20 to 70 centimeters (8 to 27+1⁄2 in) tall from a caudex with fleshy shallow roots. The linear to lance-shaped or triangular leaves are primarily basal, with blades up to 25 cm (10 in) long. The herbage is slightly hairy to woolly or cobwebby. The inflorescence bears several flower heads in a cluster, the middle, terminal head often largest and held on a shorter peduncle, making the cluster look flat. The heads contain many disc florets and usually 8 or 13 ray florets which may be yellow to cream to white in color. Some heads lack ray florets.


Erechtites minimus, common names toothed fireweed and coastal burnweed, is a species of plant in the sunflower family. It is native to Australia (all 6 states) and New Zealand, and also naturalized on the Pacific Coast of the United States (Washington, Oregon, and California).


Senecio ovatus, common name wood ragwort,  is a perennial herbaceous plant belonging to the family Asteraceae.


Senecio ovatus can reach a height of 50–150 centimetres (20–59 in). The stems are erect and hairless, while leaves are oblong, lanceolate and finely serrated. Flowers are light yellow. The flowering season is from July to September.


Senecio ovatus is present in central Europe.


This plant grows  on uncultivated lands, along waterfronts and in the undergrowth of rich, shady and moist forests, at en elevation of 200–2,000 metres (660–6,560 ft) above sea level.


Senecio ovatus (P. Gaertner, Meyer & Scherb.) Willd. subsp. ovatus
Senecio ovatus subsp. alpestris (Gaudin) Herborg


Senecio vernalis is one of the European species of Senecio, an annual that is also known as eastern groundsel. While it has been long classified as Senecio vernalis, this species has more recently been described as a subspecies of Senecio leucanthemifolius and is now included by some in that species.


Eastern groundsel is a "lovely yellow-flowering weed found by the roadside and on the edges of fields" that can be sometimes confused with S. eboracensis.
Stems and leaves
Leaves usually wavey, dissected, with lateral lobes that are about as long as width of central undivided portion, usually conspicuously covered with fine hairs. The edges are serrated. Leaves alternate one leaf per node along the stem.
Seeds
The oldest collection of seeds recorded was 16 years; average germination change for these was from 100% to 82.5%, with a mean storage period 13 years.
A Senecio and a diploid, Senecio vernalis is part of a species group along with S. flavus, S. gallicus, S. squalidus and S. glaucus who are widespread geographically and interesting for the study of genecology (the study of genetic differences in relation to the environment) and plant evolution.


English: eastern groundsel
German: Frühlings-Greiskraut
Estonian: Kevad-ristirohi
Finnish: Kevätvillakko
Dutch: Oostelijk kruiskruid
Latvian: Pavasara krustaine
Lithuanian: Pavasarinė žilė
Hungarian: Tavaszi aggófű
Croatian: Proljetni dragušac, Proljetni kostriš, Proljetni staračac
French: Séneçon de printemps
Slovene: Starček jarný
Danish: Vår-Brandbæger
Swedish: Vårkorsört
Norwegian: Vårsvineblom
Romanian: spălăcioasă
Russian: Крестовник весенний
Armenian: Հալևորուկ գարնանային
Hebrew: סביון אביבי  ,סַבְיוֹן אֲבִיבִי


Native:
Palearctic:
Western Asia: Cyprus, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey
Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ciscaucasia, Dagestan
Middle Asia: Turkmenistan
Middle Europe: Austria, Hungary, Poland
East Europe: Belarus, Croatia, Estonia, Crimea, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine
Southeastern Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia. Kosovo


Senecio leucanthemifolius subsp. vernalis (Waldst. & Kit.) Greuter
Misapplied names
Senecio coronopifolius sec. Grossgejm, A. A.
Senecio gallicus sec. Demiri, M.
Senecio gallicus sec. Josifović, M. & al.
Senecio gallicus sec. Hayek, A. von


Senegalia greggii, formerly known as Acacia greggii, is a species of tree in the genus Senegalia native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, from the extreme south of Utah south through southern Nevada, southeast California, Arizona, New Mexico and western Texas to Baja California, Sinaloa and Nuevo León in Mexico. The population in Utah at 37°10' N is the northernmost naturally occurring Senegalia species anywhere in the world.
Common names include catclaw acacia, catclaw mesquite, Gregg's catclaw, paradise flower, wait-a-minute bush, and wait-a-bit tree; these names mostly come from the fact that the tree has numerous hooked prickles with the shape and size of a cat's claw which tend to hook onto passers-by; the hooked person must stop ("wait a minute") to remove the prickles carefully to avoid injury or shredded clothing. (The common name "cat's claw" is also used to refer to several other plant species, including Uncaria tomentosa, a woody vine found in the tropical jungles of South and Central America.) The specific epithet greggii refers to Josiah Gregg, a 19th-century author, explorer, and amateur naturalist of the American Southwest and northern Mexico.


It is a large shrub or small tree growing to 10–15 m (33–49 ft) tall with a trunk up to 20–30 cm (7.9–11.8 in) diameter. The grey-green leaves are deciduous, and bipinnate, divided into 1-3 pairs of pinnae, each pinna 2–3 cm (0.79–1.18 in) long with 10-18 leaflets that are 3–6 mm (0.12–0.24 in). Pinnae are most frequently in two pairs, with the proximal pair perpendicular to the petiolule and the distal pair forming a V at the tip.
The blooms are produced in dense cylindrical spikes of numerous flowers, each individual flower with five cream colored 3 mm (0.12 in) petals and numerous creamy yellow 6 mm (0.24 in) stamens. The fruit is a flat, twisted legume (pod) 6–15 cm (2.4–5.9 in) long, containing generally 3 to 5 hard, flattened, medium brown seeds.  The seed pod is constricted between seeds (a loment), and seed dispersal occurs both through dehiscence and breaks at these constrictions.


Senegalia greggii is most common in arroyos where its roots have access to deep water. Its seeds require physical scarification in order to germinate. This effectively prevents germination unless a flash flood disturbs the area and deposits enough water to increase the likelihood that seedlings will be able to establish deep enough roots to survive the dry season. Catclaw is fully drought deciduous and will usually lack leaves for most of the year. S. greggii has extrafloral nectaries, a trait shared with other senegalias. A tentative connection has been made between these glands and insects that would suggest a mutualistic relationship (as found in other Senegalia species).  Ants are known to use the glands as a source of food and water, and may provide some defense for the plant against herbivorous insects. Like other arroyo trees in family Fabaceae, S. greggii is frequently afflicted with Desert Mistletoe, Phoradendron californicum. Unlike other legumes, S. greggii is not known to form root nodule associations with nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
It is argued that this species may be an example of an evolutionary anachronism, in which the range and renewal of the species is limited due to the extinction of the mammalian megafauna responsible for seed dispersal. Within this model, the scarification required to germinate the seeds would have occurred during the chewing and digestion of the fruit by a large mammal, who later passes the seed intact some distance from the original tree.
Gambel quail eat the seeds. Antelope browse the foliage, but more delicate species may do so cautiously on account of the thorns.


Senegalia greggii, even though it is used as forage for livestock, contains a potentially poisonous cyanogenic glycoside called prunasin.  Mature seeds are to be avoided, as the native people did. S. greggii young, unripe beans were gathered and eaten by desert tribes of North America, including the Chemehuevi of the Southern Paiute, the Pima, and the Cahuilla. The Cahuilla also ground the dried beans for mush and cakes, while the Havasupai ground it to make flour for bread. The Seri ground the beans to meal then mixed it with water and sea lion oil for porridge. The Diegueno used S. greggii as food for domesticated animals.
The Pimas and Tohono O'odham ate the seeds as pinole.
The Cahuilla and Pima used the fibers for sturdy construction material and firewood. The Havasupai split the twigs and used them for basketry, but also used the twigs as a broom to brush off metates. The O'odham used the broken twigs for baskets, and were curved to make intricate weaves in the baskets. The Pima used the dried bushes to pile them to make a brush fence. The branches were used to make cradle frames as well.
The Tohono O'odham fitted the branches around deer hunters' heads to make a disguise, and the buds and blossoms were dried to make perfume sachets by the women. The sticks were also used to dislodge saguaro fruits from the cactus body, and rods were curved to flesh animal skins. The Akimel O'odham made bows out of the wood.


Beta-methyl-phenethylamine
Catechin
Fisetin
Hordenine
Phenethylamine
Quercetin
Tyramine


Senna alata is an important medicinal tree, as well as an ornamental flowering plant in the subfamily Caesalpinioideae. It also known as emperor's candlesticks, candle bush, candelabra bush, Christmas candles, empress candle plant, ringworm shrub, or candletree. A remarkable species of Senna, it was sometimes separated in its own genus, Herpetica.


Senna alata is native to most of the Neotropics (from Mexico and the West Indies to Paraguay), and can be found in diverse habitats. In the tropics, it grows up to an altitude of 1,200 metres (3,900 ft). It is an invasive species in Austronesia distributed in ranges from India to America. These plants have a greater ornamental and medicinal value in the southeast Asia, North Australia and African ranges.


The shrub stands 3–4 metres (9.8–13.1 ft) tall, with leaves 50–80 centimetres (20–31 in) long.
The leaves close in the dark.
The inflorescence looks like a yellow candle.
The fruit, shaped like a straight pod, is up to 25 cm long.  Its seeds are distributed by water or animals.
The seed pods are nearly straight, dark brown or nearly black, about 15 centimetres (5.9 in) long, and 15 millimetres (0.59 in) wide. On both sides of the pods is a wing that runs the length of the pod. Pods contain 50 to 60 flattened, triangular seeds.


This species is easy to grow from the seed. They may either be sown directly or started in a nursery.


Senna alata (also known as Cassia alata) is often called the ringworm bush because of its very effective fungicidal properties, for treating ringworm and other fungal infections of the skin. The leaves are ground in a mortar to obtain a kind of "green cotton wool". This is mixed with the same amount of vegetable oil and rubbed on the affected area two or three times a day. A fresh preparation is made every day. Its active ingredients include the yellow chrysophanic acid.
Its laxative effect, due to its anthraquinone content, is also well proven.
Senna alata is locally known as akapulko in the Philippines where it is used as both an ornamental and medicinal plant due to its laxative, purgative and anti-fungal properties.
In Sri Lanka, known as Ath-thora (ඇත්තෝර), it is used as an ingredient in Sinhala traditional medicine.


Senna covesii (desert senna, Coues' senna, rattleweed, rattlebox, dais, or cove senna) is a perennial subshrub in the family Fabaceae, native to the Mojave Desert and Sonoran Desert in southeastern California, southern Nevada, and Arizona in the United States, and northern Baja California in Mexico. It is found on desert plains and in sandy washes between 500 and 600 m above sea level, and is very common in Joshua Tree National Park. The specific epithet honors ornithologist Elliott Coues.
It grows to 30–60 cm tall, and is leafless most of the year. The leaves are pinnate, 3–7 cm long, with two or three pairs of leaflets (no terminal leaflet); the leaflets are elliptical, 1.0-2.5 cm long. The flowers are yellow in color, with five rounded petals about 12 mm long.
This shrub is often planted by landscapers and as part of roadside wildflower programs.  Flowers are visited by carpenter bees and bumblebees.  Sulphur butterflies use the plant as a larval food source.


Senna obtusifolia, known by the common names Chinese senna, American sicklepod, sicklepod, etc., is a plant in the genus Senna, sometimes separated in the monotypic genus Diallobus. It grows wild in North, Central, and South America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania, and is considered a particularly serious weed in many places. It has a long-standing history of confusion with Senna tora and that taxon in many sources actually refers to the present species.
In the traditional medicine of Eastern Asia, the seeds are called jué míng zǐ in Chinese, gyeolmyeongja in Korean, and ketsumeishi in Japanese (simplified: 决明子; traditional: 決明子).
The green leaves of the plant are fermented to produce a high-protein food product called "kawal" which is eaten by many people in Sudan as a meat substitute. Its leaves, seeds, and root are also used in folk medicine, primarily in Asia. It is believed to possess a laxative effect, as well as to be beneficial for the eyes. As a folk remedy, the seeds are often roasted, then boiled in water to produce a tea. The plant's seeds are a commercial source of cassia gum, a food additive usually used as a thickener and named for the Chinese Senna's former placement in the genus Cassia. Roasted and ground, the seeds have also been used as a substitute for coffee. In vitro cultures of S. obtusifolia such as hairy roots may be a source of valuable secondary metabolites with medical applications.


S. obtusifolia is known by a number of common names. Apart from "sicklepod", sickle-pod senna, rarely "Chinese senna" or even "American sicklepod", it is also called arsenic weed, foetid cassia, or wild senna.
It is also known locally by common names such as "coffee weed" (coffeeweed) or "java bean" (in Australia) or "coffee pod" (in the American South or West), although the terms "coffee weed" or "coffee pod" are ambiguous as they also apply to S. tora. It may be called by the Hindi name "chakunda" in India, but this is also one of the names for S. tora.
The scientific name means "blunt-leaved senna", with obtusifolia coming from Latin obtusus ("dull", "blunt") + folium ("leaf").
Names in its native range are also:
Chinese: pinyin: jué míng zi (simplified Chinese: 决明子; traditional Chinese: 決明子), though this could loosely apply to seeds of the Senna genus generally.
Japanese: ebisu-gusa ("Ebisu grass": エビスグサ; 胡草; 恵比須草)
Korean: gyeolmyeongja (hangul: 결명자; hanja: 決明子)
Vietnamese: quyết minh tử (from Hán tự: 決明子)
Portuguese: fedegoso (also used for Senna macranthera and others)
Hindi: chirauta chokad


Chinese senna has been treated under a wide range of scientific names. Some are synonyms of Senna obtusifolia, others are names that have been applied to it in error. In addition, several of these names may also refer to related plants. In particular, the distinction between this species and Senna tora was fraught with errors and misunderstandings:
Cassia humilis Collad.
Cassia humilis Steud. is a synonym of Chamaecrista kunthiana
Cassia numilis Collad. is apparently a misprint and refers to Senna tora
Cassia obtusifolia L.
Cassia tora auct. non L.
Cassia tora L. is a synonym of Senna tora
Cassia tora L. var. b Wight & Arn.
Cassia tora L. var. humilis (Collad.) Collad.
Cassia tora L. var. obtusifolia (L.) Haines
Cassia toroides Raf.
Cassia toroides Roxb.
Diallobus falcatus Raf.
Diallobus uniflorus Raf.
Senna toroides Roxb.


The materia medica name for the seeds in Chinese is jué míng zǐ (simplified: 决明子; traditional: 決明子). The medicinal seeds are also known by the equivalent Korean name gyeolmyeongja (결명자; 決明子) in traditional Korean medicine, and by the Japanese name ketsumei-shi (ケツメイシ, 決明子) in kampō medicine.
The jue ming zi is used widely in Asia, including Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, and its herbal tea is drunk instead of regular tea as a preventative for hypertension. It is also purported to have the ability to clear the eye. In Korea also, medicinal gyeolmyeongja is usually prepared as tea (gyeolmyeongja-cha. ‘sickle pod tea’).
Senna tora (Cassia tora) is used similarly, and though distinguished in the Chinese market as the "little/lesser" variety or shao jue ming 小決明) the Japanese government's [pharmacopoeia] (Nihon yakkyokuhō) officially acknowledges both  S. obtusifolia and S. tora to be commerced as ketsumeishi.
The Japanese beverage habu-cha (ハブ茶), as the name suggests, was originally brewed from the seeds of the habusō or S. occidentalis, but currently marketed habu-cha uses S. obtusifolia as substitute, since it is a higher-yielding crop.


Kawal, a protein-rich meat substitute eaten in Sudan, is produced by crushing the leaves of the plant into a paste which is then traditionally fermented in an earthenware jar, buried in a cool place. The jar is dug up every three days and the contents mixed. After two weeks, the paste is removed and rolled into balls which are left to dry in the sun. They are usually cooked in stews with onions and okra.


Senna occidentalis [Indian vernacular name Usaya ki Fali] is a pantropical plant species, native to the Americas. The species was formerly placed in the genus Cassia.
Vernacular names in English include septicweed, coffee senna, coffeeweed, piss-a-bed, Mogdad coffee, negro-coffee, senna coffee, Stephanie coffee, stinkingweed or styptic weed.
The plant is reported to be poisonous to cattle, because it contains a known toxic derivative of anthraquinone called emodin. and the seeds contain chrysarobin (1,8-dihydroxy-3-methyl-9-anthrone) and N-methylmorpholine.


In Jamaica the seeds are roasted, brewed and served as tea to treat hemorrhoids, gout, rheumatism, and diabetes.
Mogdad coffee seeds can be roasted and used as a substitute for coffee. They have also been used as an adulterant for coffee. There is apparently no caffeine in mogdad coffee.
Despite the claims of being poisonous, the leaves of this plant, Dhiguthiyara in the Maldivian language, have been used in the diet of the Maldives for centuries in dishes such as mas huni and also as a medicinal plant.
This plant is mainly used for the treatment of bone fractures and bone dislocation as an herbal treatment in India.


Almost all parts (leaf, root, seeds) of the plant are used as food and medicine by tribal populations in India. However, consumption of Bana Chakunda seeds has been identified as a possible cause of death of tribal children due to acute Encephalopathy (see Acute HME syndrome). Once the plant was identified as the cause, the number of deaths plummeted.
The same thing happened in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where 16 outbreaks were recorded. This was a record in comparison to the clinical study of 1979, at which eight calves died after contracting dyspnea, neutrophilia and tachycardia from consumption of the plant.


C. occidentalis L. Sp. Pl. 377. 1753; DC.  Prodr. 2 : 497. 1825 ; Baker, in Hook. F. Fl. Brit. Ind. 2: 262, 1878;  Heinig, Enum. 401. 1907 ; Ohashi in Hara, Fl. E. Himal. 144. 1966; Deb. D.B. Fl. Tripura State 1 : 119. 1981; C. planisiliqua L. Sp. Pl. 377. 1753; Senna  occidentalis Roxb. Fl. Ind. 2 : 343. 1832.
Plant: annual undershrub, subglabrous, foetid, few feet high.
Leaves: alternate, compound, paripinnate; rachis channelled, presence of a gland at the base of the rachis; stipulate, stipules obliquely cordate, acuminate; leaflets 4–5 pairs, size (3.7 cm X 2 cm- 7 cm X 3.5 cm), oblate to oblong – lanceolate; acuminate, margin ciliate, glabrous or pubescence.
Inflorescence: axillary corymb and terminal panicle.
Flowers: complete, bisexual, slightly irregular, zygomorphic, pentamerous, hypogynous, pedicelate; bractate, bracts white with pinkish tinge, thin, ovate-  acuminate, caducous; yellow.
Calyx: sepals 5, gamosepalous, tube short, 5 lobed, obtuse, glabrous, imbricate, odd sepal is anterior.
Corolla: petals 5, polypetalous, alternisepalous, sub-equal, with distinct claw, conspicuously veined, ascending imbricate, posterior petal is the innermost.
Androecium: stamens 10, free, unequal in size, 7 perfect and 3 reduced to staminode, filaments unequal, anther dithecous, basifixed, introrse and dehiscing by terminal pores.
Gynoecium: carpel 1, ovary superiour, unilocular, many ovuled, marginal placentation; style simple; stigma terminate, capitate.
Fruit: pod, dehiscent, woody, 12.5 cm X 0.7 cm, glabrous, recurved, subcompressed, distinctly torulose, 23-30 seeded.


Sequoiadendron giganteum (giant sequoia; also known as giant redwood, Sierra redwood, Sierran redwood, Wellingtonia or simply big tree—a nickname also used by John Muir) is the sole living species in the genus Sequoiadendron, and one of three species of coniferous trees known as redwoods, classified in the family Cupressaceae in the subfamily Sequoioideae, together with Sequoia sempervirens (coast redwood) and Metasequoia glyptostroboides (dawn redwood). Giant sequoia specimens are the most massive trees on Earth. The common use of the name sequoia usually refers to Sequoiadendron giganteum, which occurs naturally only in groves on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California.
The giant sequoia is listed as an endangered species by the IUCN, with fewer than 80,000 trees remaining. Since its last assessment as an endangered species in 2011, it was estimated that another 13–19% of the population (or 9,761–13,637 mature trees) was destroyed during the Castle Fire of 2020 and the KNP Complex & Windy Fire in 2021, events attributed to fire suppression, drought and global warming. Despite their large size and adaptations to fire, giant sequoias have become severely threatened by a combination of fuel load from fire suppression, which fuels extremely destructive fires that are also  exacerbated by drought and climate change. These conditions have led to the death of many populations in large fires in recent decades. Prescribed burns to reduce available fuel load may be crucial for saving the species.
The etymology of the genus name has been presumed—initially in The Yosemite Book by Josiah Whitney in 1868—to be in honor of Sequoyah (1767–1843), who was the inventor of the Cherokee syllabary. An etymological study published in 2012 concluded that Austrian Stephen L. Endlicher is actually responsible for the name. A linguist and botanist, Endlicher corresponded with experts in the Cherokee language including Sequoyah, whom he admired. He also realized that coincidentally the genus could be described in Latin as sequi (meaning to follow) because the number of seeds per cone in the newly classified genus aligned in mathematical sequence with the other four genera in the suborder. Endlicher thus coined the name "Sequoia" as both a description of the tree's genus and an honor to the indigenous man he admired.


Giant sequoia specimens are the most massive individual trees in the world. They grow to an average height of 50–85 m (164–279 ft) with trunk diameters ranging from 6–8 m (20–26 ft). Record trees have been measured at 94.8 m (311 ft) tall. Trunk diameters of 17 m (56 ft) have been claimed via research figures taken out of context. The specimen known to have the greatest diameter at breast height is the General Grant tree at 8.8 m (28.9 ft). Between 2014 and 2016, it is claimed that specimens of coast redwood were found to have greater trunk diameters than all known giant sequoias - though this has not been independently verified or affirmed in any academic literature. The trunks of coast redwoods taper at lower heights than those of giant sequoias which have more columnar trunks that maintain larger diameters to greater heights.
The oldest known giant sequoia is 3,200–3,266 years old based on dendrochronology. Giant sequoias are among the oldest living organisms on Earth, and are the verified third longest-lived tree species after the Great Basin bristlecone pine and alerce. Giant sequoia bark is fibrous, furrowed, and may be 90 cm (3 ft) thick at the base of the columnar trunk. The sap contains tannic acid, which provides significant protection from fire damage. The leaves are evergreen, awl-shaped, 3–6 mm (1⁄8–1⁄4 in) long, and arranged spirally on the shoots.
The giant sequoia regenerates by seed. The seed cones are 4–7 cm (1+1⁄2–3 in) long and mature in 18–20 months, though they typically remain green and closed for as long as 20 years. Each cone has 30–50 spirally arranged scales, with several seeds on each scale, giving an average of 230 seeds per cone. Seeds are dark brown, 4–5 mm (0.16–0.20 in) long, and 1 mm (0.04 in) broad, with a 1-millimeter (0.04 in) wide, yellow-brown wing along each side. Some seeds shed when the cone scales shrink during hot weather in late summer, but most are liberated by insect damage or when the cone dries from the heat of fire. Young trees start to bear cones after 12 years.
Trees may produce sprouts from their stumps subsequent to injury, until about 20 years old; however, shoots do not form on the stumps of mature trees as they do on coast redwoods. Giant sequoias of all ages may sprout from their boles when branches are lost to fire or breakage.
A large tree may have as many as 11,000 cones. Cone production is greatest in the upper portion of the canopy. A mature giant sequoia disperses an estimated 300–400 thousand seeds annually. The winged seeds may fly as far as 180 m (590 ft) from the parent tree.
Lower branches die readily from being shaded, but trees younger than 100 years retain most of their dead branches. Trunks of mature trees in groves are generally free of branches to a height of 20–50 m (70–160 ft), but solitary trees retain lower branches.


The natural distribution of giant sequoias is restricted to a limited area of the western Sierra Nevada, California. As a paleoendemic species,  they occur in scattered groves, with a total of 81 groves (see list of sequoia groves for a full inventory), comprising a total area of only 144.16 km² (35,620 acres). Nowhere does it grow in pure stands, although in a few small areas, stands do approach a pure condition. The northern two-thirds of its range, from the American River in Placer County southward to the Kings River, has only eight disjunct groves. The remaining southern groves are concentrated between the Kings River and the Deer Creek Grove in southern Tulare County. Groves range in size from 12.4 km² (3,100 acres) with 20,000 mature trees, to small groves with only six living trees. Many are protected in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and Giant Sequoia National Monument.
The giant sequoia is usually found in a humid climate characterized by dry summers and snowy winters. Most giant sequoia groves are on granitic-based residual and alluvial soils. The elevation of the giant sequoia groves generally ranges from 1,400–2,000 m (4,600–6,600 ft) in the north, to 1,700–2,150 metres (5,580–7,050 ft) to the south. Giant sequoias generally occur on the south-facing sides of northern mountains, and on the northern faces of more southerly slopes.
High levels of reproduction are not necessary to maintain the present population levels. Few groves, however, have sufficient young trees to maintain the present density of mature giant sequoias for the future. The majority of giant sequoia groves are currently undergoing a gradual decline in density since European settlement.


While the present day distribution of this species is limited to a small area of California, it was once much more widely distributed in prehistoric times, and was a reasonably common species in North American and Eurasian coniferous forests until its range was greatly reduced by the last ice age. Older fossil specimens reliably identified as giant sequoia have been found in Cretaceous era sediments from a number of sites in North America and Europe, and even as far afield as New Zealand and Australia.


In 1974, a group of giant sequoias was planted by the United States Forest Service in the San Jacinto Mountains of Southern California in the immediate aftermath of a wildfire that left the landscape barren. The giant sequoias were rediscovered in 2008 by botanist Rudolf Schmid and his daughter Mena Schmidt while hiking on Black Mountain Trail through Hall Canyon. Black Mountain Grove is home to over 150 giant sequoias, some of which stand over 6.1 m (20 ft) tall. This grove is not to be confused with the Black Mountain Grove in the southern Sierra. Nearby Lake Fulmor Grove is home to seven giant sequoias, the largest of which is 20 m (66 ft) tall. The two groves are located approximately 175 mi (282 km) southeast of the southernmost naturally occurring giant sequoia grove, Deer Creek Grove.
It was later discovered that the United States Forest Service had planted giant sequoias across Southern California. However, the giant sequoias of Black Mountain Grove and nearby Lake Fulmor Grove are the only ones known to be reproducing and propagating free of human intervention. The conditions of the San Jacinto Mountains mimic those of the Sierra Nevada, allowing the trees to naturally propagate throughout the canyon.


Giant sequoias are in many ways adapted to forest fires. Their bark is unusually fire resistant, and their cones will normally open immediately after a fire. Giant sequoias are a pioneer species, and are having difficulty reproducing in their original habitat (and very rarely reproduce in cultivation) due to the seeds only being able to grow successfully in full sun and in mineral-rich soils, free from competing vegetation. Although the seeds can germinate in moist needle humus in the spring, these seedlings will die as the duff dries in the summer. They therefore require periodic wildfire to clear competing vegetation and soil humus before successful regeneration can occur. Without fire, shade-loving species will crowd out young sequoia seedlings, and sequoia seeds will not germinate. When fully grown, these trees typically require large amounts of water and are therefore often concentrated near streams. Squirrels, chipmunks, finches and sparrows consume the freshly sprouted seedlings, preventing their growth.
Fires also bring hot air high into the canopy via convection, which in turn dries and opens the cones. The subsequent release of large quantities of seeds coincides with the optimal postfire seedbed conditions. Loose ground ash may also act as a cover to protect the fallen seeds from ultraviolet radiation damage.
Due to fire suppression efforts and livestock grazing during the early and mid-20th century, low-intensity fires no longer occurred naturally in many groves, and still do not occur in some groves today. The suppression of fires leads to ground fuel build-up and the dense growth of fire-sensitive white fir, which increases the risk of more intense fires that can use the firs as ladders to threaten mature giant sequoia crowns. Natural fires may also be important in keeping carpenter ants in check.
In 1970, the National Park Service began controlled burns of its groves to correct these problems. Current policies also allow natural fires to burn. One of these untamed burns severely damaged the second-largest tree in the world, the Washington tree, in September 2003, 45 days after the fire started. This damage made it unable to withstand the snowstorm of January 2005, leading to the collapse of over half the trunk.
In addition to fire, two animal agents also assist giant sequoia seed release. The more significant of the two is a longhorn beetle (Phymatodes nitidus) that lays eggs on the cones, into which the larvae then bore holes. Reduction of the vascular water supply to the cone scales allows the cones to dry and open for the seeds to fall. Cones damaged by the beetles during the summer will slowly open over the next several months. Some research indicates many cones, particularly higher in the crowns, may need to be partially dried by beetle damage before fire can fully open them. The other agent is the Douglas squirrel (Tamiasciurus douglasi) that gnaws on the fleshy green scales of younger cones. The squirrels are active year-round, and some seeds are dislodged and dropped as the cone is eaten.


The genome of the giant sequoia was published in 2020. The size of the giant sequoia genome is 8.125 Gb (8.125 billion base pairs) which were assembled into eleven chromosome-scale scaffolds, the largest to date of any organism.
This is the first genome sequenced in the Cupressaceae family, and it provides insights into disease resistance and survival for this robust species on a genetic basis. The genome was found to contain over 900 complete or partial predicted NLR genes used by plants to prevent the spread of infection by microbial pathogens.
The genome sequence was extracted from a single fertilized seed harvested from a 1,360-year-old tree specimen in Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park identified as SEGI 21. It was sequenced over a three-year period by researchers at University of California, Davis, Johns Hopkins University, University of Connecticut, and Northern Arizona University and was supported by grants from Save the Redwoods League and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture as part of a species conservation, restoration and management effort.


The giant sequoia was well known to Native American tribes living in its area. Native American names for the species include wawona, toos-pung-ish and hea-mi-withic, the latter two in the language of the Tule River Tribe.
The first reference to the giant sequoia by Europeans is in 1833, in the diary of the explorer J. K. Leonard; the reference does not mention any locality, but his route would have taken him through the Calaveras Grove. Leonard's observation was not publicized. The next European to see the species was John M. Wooster, who carved his initials in the bark of the 'Hercules' tree in the Calaveras Grove in 1850; again, this observation received no publicity. Much more publicity was given to the "discovery" by Augustus T. Dowd of the Calaveras Grove in 1852, and this is commonly cited as the species' discovery by non-natives. The tree found by Dowd, christened the 'Discovery Tree', was felled in 1853.
The first scientific naming of the species was by John Lindley in December 1853, who named it Wellingtonia gigantea, without realizing this was an invalid name under the botanical code as the name Wellingtonia had already been used earlier for another unrelated plant (Wellingtonia arnottiana in the family Sabiaceae). The name "Wellingtonia" has persisted in England as a common name. The following year, Joseph Decaisne transferred it to the same genus as the coast redwood, naming it Sequoia gigantea, but again this name was invalid, having been applied earlier (in 1847, by Endlicher) to the coast redwood. The name Washingtonia californica was also applied to it by Winslow in 1854, though this too is invalid, belonging to the palm genus Washingtonia.
In 1907, it was placed by Carl Ernst Otto Kuntze in the otherwise fossil genus Steinhauera, but doubt as to whether the giant sequoia is related to the fossil originally so named makes this name invalid.
The nomenclatural oversights were finally corrected in 1939 by John Theodore Buchholz, who also pointed out the giant sequoia is distinct from the coast redwood at the genus level and coined the name Sequoiadendron giganteum for it.
The etymology of the genus name has been presumed—initially in The Yosemite Book by Josiah Whitney in 1868—to be in honor of Sequoyah (1767–1843), who was the inventor of the Cherokee syllabary. An etymological study published in 2012, however, concluded that the name was more likely to have originated from the Latin sequi (meaning to follow) since the number of seeds per cone in the newly classified genus fell in mathematical sequence with the other four genera in the suborder.
John Muir wrote of the species in about 1870:

"Do behold the King in his glory, King Sequoia! Behold! Behold! seems all I can say. Some time ago I left all for Sequoia and have been and am at his feet, fasting and praying for light, for is he not the greatest light in the woods, in the world? Where are such columns of sunshine, tangible, accessible, terrestrialized?'


Wood from mature giant sequoias is highly resistant to decay, but due to being fibrous and brittle, it is generally unsuitable for construction. From the 1880s through the 1920s, logging took place in many groves in spite of marginal commercial returns. The Hume-Bennett Lumber Company was the last to harvest giant sequoia, going out of business in 1924. Due to their weight and brittleness, trees would often shatter when they hit the ground, wasting much of the wood. Loggers attempted to cushion the impact by digging trenches and filling them with branches. Still, as little as 50% of the timber is estimated to have made it from groves to the mill. The wood was used mainly for shingles and fence posts, or even for matchsticks.
Pictures of the once majestic trees broken and abandoned in formerly pristine groves, and the thought of the giants put to such modest use, spurred the public outcry that caused most of the groves to be preserved as protected land. The public can visit an example of 1880s clear-cutting at Big Stump Grove near General Grant Grove. As late as the 1980s, some immature trees were logged in Sequoia National Forest, publicity of which helped lead to the creation of Giant Sequoia National Monument.
The wood from immature trees is less brittle, with recent tests on young plantation-grown trees showing it similar to coast redwood wood in quality. This is resulting in some interest in cultivating giant sequoia as a very high-yielding timber crop tree, both in California and also in parts of western Europe, where it may grow more efficiently than coast redwoods. In the northwest United States, some entrepreneurs have also begun growing giant sequoias for Christmas trees. Besides these attempts at tree farming, the principal economic uses for giant sequoia today are tourism and horticulture.


Formerly threatened through excess logging, sequoias are now threatened by both a combination of fire and fire suppression, along with drought and climate change. Fire suppression caused by European land management practices promotes the excessive growth of smaller trees such as fir, which can dry out in droughts, especially those fueled by climate change, and serve as a fuel load for devastating crown fires fueled by strong winds, which can kill large amounts of sequoias. One such fire, the Castle Fire of 2020, is thought to have wiped out almost 10-14% of the species' whole population, or 7500–10,600 mature trees, including potentially the King Arthur Tree, the 10th tallest known individual. 3 to 5% more, or 2,261-3,637 sequoias, are thought to have died during the KNP Complex and Windy Fire in 2021, with a combined total of 13 - 19%. The most effective remedy for these impacts is heavy prescribed burning, which will need to be multiplied by 30 times current burning practices in order to ensure heathy sequoia groves.


Giant sequoia is a very popular ornamental tree in many areas. It is successfully grown in most of western and southern Europe, the Pacific Northwest of North America north to southwest British Columbia, the southern United States, southeast Australia, New Zealand and central-southern Chile. It is also grown, though less successfully, in parts of eastern North America.
Trees can withstand temperatures of −31 °C (−25 °F) or colder for short periods of time, provided the ground around the roots is insulated with either heavy snow or mulch. Outside its natural range, the foliage can suffer from damaging windburn.
A wide range of horticultural varieties have been selected, especially in Europe, including blue, compact blue, powder blue, hazel smith, pendulum—or weeping—varieties, and grafted cultivars.


The giant sequoia was first brought into cultivation in Britain in 1853 by the horticulturist Patrick Matthew of Perthshire from seeds sent by his botanist son John in California. A much larger shipment of seed collected from the Calaveras Grove by William Lobb, acting for the Veitch Nursery near Exeter, arrived in England in December 1853; seed from this batch was widely distributed throughout Europe.
Growth in Britain is very fast, with the tallest tree, at Benmore in southwest Scotland, reaching 56.4 m (185 ft) in 2014 at age 150 years, and several others from 50–53 m (164–174 ft) tall; the stoutest is around 12 m (39 ft) in girth and 4 m (13 ft) in diameter, in Perthshire. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London also contains a large specimen. Biddulph Grange Garden in Staffordshire holds a fine collection of both Sequoiadendron giganteum and Sequoia sempervirens (coast redwood). The General Sherman of California has a volume of 1,489 m³ (52,600 cu ft); by way of comparison, the largest giant sequoias in Great Britain have volumes no greater than 90–100 m³ (3,200–3,500 cu ft), one example being the 90 m³ (3,200 cu ft) specimen in the New Forest.
Sequoiadendron giganteum has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
An avenue of 218 giant sequoias was planted in 1865 near the town of Camberley, Surrey, England. The trees have since been surrounded by modern real estate development.


Numerous giant sequoia were planted in Italy from 1860 through 1905. Several regions contain specimens that range from 40 to 48 metres (131 to 157 ft) in height. The largest tree is in Roccavione, in the Piedmont, with a basal circumference of 16 metres (52 ft). One notable tree survived a 200-metre (660 ft) tall flood wave in 1963 that was caused by a landslide at Vajont Dam. There are numerous giant sequoia in parks and reserves.
Growth rates in some areas of Europe are remarkable. One young tree in Italy reached 22 m (72 ft) tall and 88 cm (2.89 ft) trunk diameter in 17 years (Mitchell, 1972).


Growth further northeast in Europe is limited by winter cold. In Denmark, where extreme winters can reach −32 °C (−26 °F), the largest tree was 35 m (115 ft) tall and 1.7 m (5.6 ft) diameter in 1976 and is bigger today. One in Poland has purportedly survived temperatures down to −37 °C (−35 °F) with heavy snow cover.
Two members of the German Dendrology Society, E. J. Martin and Illa Martin, introduced the giant sequoia into German forestry at the Sequoiafarm Kaldenkirchen in 1952.
Twenty-nine giant sequoias, measuring around 30 m (98 ft) in height, grow in Belgrade's municipality of Lazarevac in Serbia.
The oldest Sequoiadendron in the Czech Republic, at 44 m (144 ft), grows in Ratměřice u Votic castle garden.


Giant sequoias are grown successfully in the Pacific Northwest and southern US, and less successfully in eastern North America. Giant sequoia cultivation is very successful in the Pacific Northwest from western Oregon north to southwest British Columbia, with fast growth rates. In Washington and Oregon, it is common to find giant sequoias that have been successfully planted in both urban and rural areas.
In Seattle, a 100 ft (30 m) sequoia stands as a prominent landmark at the entrance to Seattle's downtown retail core. Other large specimens exceeding 90 ft (27 m) are located on the University of Washington and Seattle University campuses, in the Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park cemetery, and in the Leschi, Madrona, and Magnolia neighborhoods.
In the northeastern US there has been some limited success in growing the species, but growth is much slower there, and it is prone to Cercospora and Kabatina fungal diseases due to the hot, humid summer climate there. A tree at Blithewold Gardens, in Bristol, Rhode Island, is reported to be 27 metres (89 ft) tall, reportedly the tallest in the New England states. The tree at the Tyler Arboretum in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, at 29.1 metres (95 ft) may be the tallest in the northeast. Specimens also grow in the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts (planted 1972, 18 m tall in 1998), at Longwood Gardens near Wilmington, Delaware, in the New Jersey State Botanical Garden at Skylands in Ringwood State Park, Ringwood, New Jersey, and in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Private plantings of giant sequoias around the Middle Atlantic States are not uncommon, and other publicly accessible specimens can be visited at the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. A few trees have been established in Colorado as well. Additionally, numerous sequoias have been planted with success in the state of Michigan.
A cold-tolerant cultivar 'Hazel Smith' selected in about 1960 is proving more successful in the northeastern US. This clone was the sole survivor of several hundred seedlings grown at a nursery in New Jersey.  The U.S. National Arboretum has a specimen grown from a cutting in 1970 that can be seen in the Gotelli Conifer Collection.


The Ballarat Botanical Gardens contain a significant collection, many of them about 150 years old. Jubilee Park and the Hepburn Mineral Springs Reserve in Daylesford, Cook Park in Orange, New South Wales and Carisbrook's Deep Creek park in Victoria both have specimens. Jamieson Township in the Victorian high country has two specimens which were planted in the early 1860s.
In Tasmania, specimens can be seen in private and public gardens, as sequoias were popular in the mid-Victorian era. The Westbury Village Green has mature specimens with more in Deloraine. The Tasmanian Arboretum contains both Sequoiadendron giganteum and Sequoia sempervirens specimens.
The Pialligo Redwood Forest consists of 3,000 surviving redwood specimens, of 122,000 planted, 500 meters east of the Canberra Airport. The forest was laid out by the city's designer Walter Burley Griffin, though the city's arborist, Thomas Charles Weston, advised against it. The National Arboretum Canberra began a grove of Sequoiadendron giganteum in 2008. They also grow in the abandoned arboretum at Mount Banda Banda in New South Wales.


Several impressive specimens of Sequoiadendron giganteum can be found in the South Island of New Zealand. Notable examples include a set of trees in a public park of Picton, as well as robust specimens in the public and botanical parks of Christchurch and Queenstown. There are also several in private gardens in Wanaka. Other locations in Christchurch and nearby include a number of mature trees at the Riccarton Park Racecourse, three large trees on the roadside bordering private properties on Clyde Road, near Wai-Iti Terrace—these are at least 150 years old. The suburb of ‘Redwood’ is named after a 160 years old Giant Redwood tree in the grounds of a local hotel.  At St James Church, Harewood, is a protected very large specimen believed to be about 160 years old. A grove of about sixteen Redwood trees of varying ages is in Sheldon Park in the Belfast, New Zealand suburb. Some of these trees are in poor condition because of indifferent care. There is also a very large tree at Rangiora High School, which was planted for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee and is thus over 130 years old. Other Giant Redwood trees in Rangiora include mature specimens in Victoria Park, Rangiora Borough School and the street opposite, Lilybrook Reserve, and in the carpark of a supermarket in Ivory Street.
The location of a large number of New Zealand Redwoods can be found at https://register.notabletrees.org.nz


A number of mature Redwood trees grow in the central part of the township of Hanmer, North Canterbury.


Some sequoias, such as the Mother of the Forest, were undoubtedly far larger than any living tree today. However, as of 2009, the top ten largest giant sequoias sorted by volume of their trunks are:
The General Sherman tree is estimated to weigh about 2100 tonnes.
The Washington Tree was previously arguably the second largest tree with a volume of 47,850 cubic feet (1,355 m³) (although the upper half of its trunk was hollow, making the calculated volume debatable), but after losing the hollow upper half of its trunk in January 2005 following a fire, it is no longer of great size.


Redwood  – Redwood Mountain Grove – 95 metres (311 ft)
tallest outside the United States: specimen near Ribeauvillé, France, measured in 2014 at a height between 58 m (190 ft) and 58 m (190 ft) at age 158 years.


General Grant – General Grant Grove – 8.8 metres (29 ft)


Conifer Specialist Group (1998). "Sequoiadendron giganteum". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 1998. Retrieved 11 May 2006. Listed as Vulnerable (VU A1cd v2.3)
Aune, P. S., ed. (1994). Proceedings of the Symposium on Giant Sequoias. US Dept. of Agriculture Forest Service (Pacific Southwest Research Station). General Technical Report PSW-GTR-151.
Flint, W.D. (2002). To Find The Biggest Tree. Sequoia Natural History Association, Inc. ISBN 1-878441-09-4.
Mitchell, Alan (1972). Conifers in the British Isles. HMSO. Forestry Commission Booklet 33.
Mitchell, Alan (1996). Alan Mitchell's Trees of Britain. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-219972-6.
Harvey, H. T.; Shellhammer, H. S.; Stecker, R. E. (1980). Giant sequoia ecology. Scientific Monograph Series. Vol. 12. Washington, DC: U.S. National Park Service.
Kilgore, B. (1970). "Restoring Fire to the Sequoias". National Parks and Conservation Magazine. 44 (277): 16–22.
Zsolt Debreczy; Istvan Racz (2012).  Kathy Musial (ed.). Conifers Around the World (1st ed.). DendroPress. p. 1089. ISBN 978-9632190617.
White, J. R.; Fry, W. (1938). Big Trees. United Kingdom: Stanford University Press.


Serapias lingua can be found in damp meadows and open fields of Portugal, Spain, Malta, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece and all the Mediterranean islands west of Crete and in western North Africa.


Serapias lingua flowers in spring to early summer with 2.5 cm flowers and then they go dormant in mid and late summer.


The white-browed scrubwren (Sericornis frontalis) is a passerine bird found on the New England Tablelands and coastal areas of Australia. Placed in the family Pardalotidae in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, this has met with opposition and indeed is now known to be wrong; they rather belong to the independent family Acanthizidae.
It is insectivorous and inhabits undergrowth, from which it rarely ventures, though can be found close to urban areas. It is 11–14 cm (4.3–5.5 in) long and predominantly brown in colour with prominent white brows and pale eyes, though the three individual subspecies vary widely. Found in small groups, it is sedentary and engages in cooperative breeding. The larger Tasmanian scrubwren was formerly considered a subspecies of this species.


The white-browed scrubwren was originally described by naturalists Nicholas Aylward Vigors and Thomas Horsfield in 1827. The specific epithet frontalis derived from the Latin frons "eyebrow". It is now divided into two subspecies:
S. f. frontalis, known as the white-browed scrubwren, is found in coastal eastern Australia from the New South Wales-Queensland border round to Adelaide in South Australia.
S. f. laevigaster, known as the buff-breasted scrubwren, is found in coastal Queensland from the New South Wales border north to the Atherton Tableland.
S. humilis, the Tasmanian scrubwren, is found in Tasmania and Bass Strait islands and was formerly considered a subspecies of the white-browed scrubwren. It is larger at 13.5 cm long and lays larger eggs.
S. maculatus, known as the spotted scrubwren, occurs in coastal southern Australia, from Kangaroo Island and Adelaide westwards to Shark Bay in Western Australia. It is known to intergrade with the nominate subspecies where their ranges overlap. Genetic analysis in a 2018 study of the family found that this taxon was more divergent from S. f. frontalis than the Tasmanian or Atherton scrubwrens and hence proposed its reclassification as a species. It was reclassfied as a species in 2019.


Serruria fasciflora or common pin spiderhead is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae. It is a sprawling to upright shrublet of 40 cm to 1 m (11⁄3–31⁄3 ft) high and about 1⁄2 m (12⁄3 ft) wide. It has finely divided, upward curving leaves with thread-thin segments and clusters of sweetly scented heads, each consisting of five to seven silvery pink flowers, that may be found year-round, but mostly from May to December. It is a rather widespread and common species, that is restricted to the south of the Western Cape province of South Africa.


Serruria fasciflora is a much branched, sprawling to upright perennial shrublet of 40 cm to 1 m (11⁄3–31⁄3 ft) high and about 1⁄2 m (12⁄3 ft) wide, with purplish, initially felty or powdery hairs that are lost later on. It has sparsely hairy, twice finely divided in the upper half to two thirds, green leaves of 3–7 cm (1.2–2.8 in) long and 21⁄2–31⁄2 cm (1.0–1.4 in) wide. The furthest segments up to about 2 cm (3⁄4 in) long, awl- to almost threat-shaped with a very pointy tip.
It bears a broad corymb of ten to fifteen flat-topped flower heads on a short hairy stalk, that is enclosed by leaves. The stalks of the individual flower heads are 0.65–1.9 cm (1⁄4–3⁄4 in) long, slender, densely softly hairy, with a single awl-shaped softly hairy bract of about 4 mm (0.16 in) long just below the head. Each flower head is about 8 mm (1⁄3 in) across, consists of five to seven silvery pink, sweetly scented flowers, and is subtended by a lance-shaped floral bract.
The felty bract subtending the individual flower is more or less oval, with a thickened, later hairless glandular tip, about 3 mm (0.12 in) long. The 4-merous flowers are slightly curved before they open. The lower part, that remains merged when the flower is open, called perianth-tube is covered with long soft hairs and about 11⁄2 mm (0.06 in) long. The middle part (or claws) consists of four segments each of about 1⁄2 cm (0.2 in) long, line- to threat-shaped with short densely matted woolly hairs pressed to its surface. The upper part (or limbs), which enclosed the pollen presenter in the bud, are 11⁄2 mm (0.06 in) long, elliptic in shape with an almost pointy tip and covered with densely matted woolly hairs. The four anthers are each almost directly attached to the limbs and about 1.4 mm (0.055 in) long. From the center of each flower emerges a style of 5–7 mm (0.20–0.28 in) long, topped by a slightly pointy, almost hoof-shaped stigma of 3⁄4 mm (0.028 in) long. The ovary is covered with fine soft short hairs. The inverted egg-shaped fruit is about 4 mm (0.16 in) long has short felty hairs in the upper half.


The common pin spiderhead was first described in 1809 in a book by Joseph Knight titled On the cultivation of the plants belonging to the natural order of Proteeae, that contained an extensive revision of the Proteaceae attributed to Richard Anthony Salisbury. Salisbury described the common pin spiderhead and called it Serruria fasciflora. It is assumed that Salisbury had committed plagiarism by making use of a draft he had seen of a paper called On the natural order of plants called Proteaceae. Robert Brown was to publish this book in 1810, in which he describe a plant quite like that of Salisbury, but not identical and he called it S. burmannii. In 1897, Rudolf Schlechter again had a slightly different plant that he distinguished as S. biglandulosa. In 1912, two variants were described by John Hutchinson as S. knightii and S. subsericea, and one by Hutchinson with Edwin Percy Phillips also in 1912, that was called S. pauciflora. These plants differ in the hairiness of the leaves and petals, and the size of the flowerheads, but since then the general consensus has become that these types grade into each other, and should best be dealt with as one variable species.


Serruria fasciflora is widespread across flats and mountainous areas from the West Coast, as far north as Hopefield and south to the Cape Peninsula, to the Outeniqua Mountains in the east. On the Cape Peninsula it is common on the lower slopes and sands of Muizenberg. It has an extremely variable habitat, and occurs between sea level and 600 m (2000 ft) altitude. It can cope with windy, hot and dry summers and cool wet winters, but does not tolerate frosts. Serruria fasciflora is specifically adapted for pollination by flies, as they have a very sweet scent. The common pin spiderhead survives the regular wildfires in fynbos through its seeds. The fruits fall to the ground about two months after flowering. These have a fleshy covering (or elaiosome) that secretes a pheromone and attracts ants. Native ants collect the fruits and carry these to their underground nests. Here the elaiosomes are eaten and the seeds remain underground until they germinate when conditions are favourable.


Sesbania herbacea (syn. Sesbania exaltata) is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common names bigpod sesbania, Colorado River-hemp, and coffeeweed. It is native to the United States, particularly the southeastern states, where it grows in moist environments. It can be found elsewhere as an introduced species. It is a woody herb growing to 3 meters or more in height. The leaves are made up of many pairs of oblong leaflets. The inflorescence is a small raceme of pealike flowers with yellow or purple-spotted petals.


Sesbania punicea (Spanish gold, rattlebox, or scarlet sesban) is an ornamental shrub with reddish-orange flowers.  It has deciduous leaves and grows to a height of 15 feet (4.5 m). This plant has a high demand for water, and thrives in swamps or wet areas. It requires a mildly acidic soil, with a pH between 6.1 and 6.5.


The species is native to Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. It has spread to other parts of South America and many coastal southern United States as well as to parts of Africa. Due to its high demand for water, this species is often found on marshy shorelines. It also forms dense thickets and thrives in disturbed areas.


Flowers appear in late spring and persist until the autumn. In the United States, this species blooms between June and September,  in South Africa between November and January.
When the carpellous structures dry out, the seeds drop close to the base of the plant.  The seed coats are impermeable, which means they can be dispersed by water. This impermeability is caused by callose. Hence, they are often found near rivers and brooks. This species is also commonly found near roadsides, maybe the seeds were  imported with the soil used for construction. This species is shade-tolerant. Seedlings  can produce flowers and seeds after three month, although flowering most commonly occurs at two years of age. The plant can survive frost, but not for prolonged periods of time .


The deciduous leaves are alternate and compound. Between five and 20 pairs of elliptical leaflets occur on a single stalk. The leaf margins are commonly entire, with little or no serration. Each leaflet is oblong and ends in a pointy tip. The leaves contain stipules that are usually inconspicuous. The  flowers and fruits droop at the tips of the stalks. The branches of this shrub are rather thin, and green, but turn a darker red brown when they mature. The bark varies from gray brown to red brown with obvious horizontal lenticels.


The flowers are shaped like pea flowers,  2–3 cm long, and are commonly red-orange or red-purple. Flowers often form a raceme. Characteristic of the family Fabaceae, this species has five fused sepals and five free petals. The flower always contains ten stamens, sometimes with various combinations of fused filaments. The ovary is superior and the style is often curved. Characteristic of the subfamily Faboideae, these flowers are zygomorphic and have a specialized structure. The upper petal is referred to as the banner, and encapsulates the petals when they are in the bud. The two adjacent flowers, called the wings, overlap the bottom two petals. The bottom petals are often fused at the apex, forming a keel. The flowers  appear "showy" because they are most commonly pollinated by insects, who are attracted by these features.
The large pea pods are divided into four compartments and appear as if they have shrunk slightly due to drying  These fruits are dehiscent and dry out as they become mature. Each fruit can contain between five and  ten seeds, which are dispersed when the pod dries out and opens up. On average, a single plant can produce 100-300 pods. The immature pods are a yellow or green. As the season progresses, they turn a darker green, eventually becoming dark brown. Seedpods often stay on the plant far into the winter, and the seeds rattle when shaken by the wind, giving the plant its common name of “rattlebox”.


These plants are used as ornamentals due to their graceful shape and beautiful red flowers. It can easily be grown from seeds, which require scarification in order to germinate.
The species has been classified as invasive in many of the southern United States such as Virginia, California, Texas, and Florida.  This shrub can often form dense thickets. It is replacing native species of plants in riparian areas, taking food resources away from the local wildlife. In addition, this species contributes to riverbank erosion and flooding. It has been declared a noxious weed and/or seed in the United States in the aquatic, terrestrial, and seed forms.
This plant has no known economic or medicinal uses. Its close relative S. virgata  has been used to control soil erosion, rehabilitate disturbed areas, and revitalize riparian habitats. Juice made from the leaves of this plant reduces the response to painful stimulation and inflammatory edema in mice.


Sesbania puniceas contains toxic  saponic glycosides. The poison can be dangerous to local birds and mammals. Human who ingests this plant or its seeds can become very sick and may suffer vomiting, diarrhea, respiratory failure, and death.


The root systems of young S. punicea plants are not very extensive and the soil is loose under waterlogged conditions, so these plants can be removed by hand or simple garden tools. Trees with larger trunks can be cut and treated with glyphosate and/or triclopyr. If they are found in standing water, the stem can be cut to below the water level. Simply flooding the area will not kill them.
Biological controls have also been used to prevent this species from spreading. The South American apionid weevil, Trichapion lativentre, was introduced to South Africa in the late 1970s. This weevil has now dispersed over most of the range of S. punicea. The adult weevils feed on the leaves and lay single eggs in premature flower buds. The larvae then feed on the stamens and carpels of the flower and pupate in the hollow husks of the buds. The weevil has prevented the rapid spread of S. punicea in South Africa.


Seseli libanotis, also known by the common names moon carrot, mountain stone-parsley, or säfferot, is a species of herb in the genus Seseli of the carrot family, Apiaceae. It is native to Eurasia, throughout which it is widespread.


Seseli libanotis grows 40–120 centimetres (16–47 in) high, with erect, branching stems. The leaves follow an alternating pattern, with lower leaves stalked and upper leaves stalkless. The undersides of leaflets are bluish green. The flowers grow to under 5 millimetres (0.20 in) wide and are white, sometimes slightly reddish. The flowers follow an actinomorphic or slightly irregular zygomorphic pattern and form umbels consisting of as many as sixty flowers, with many umbels forming smaller umbels of their own. The fruit is a flat, two-sectioned, egg-shaped schizocarp that is brown in color and slightly hairy in texture, and usually grows to 2.5–4 centimetres (0.98–1.57 in) long. Three subspecies have been identified: S. l. intermedium, S. l. libanotis, and S. l. sibiricum.


Seseli libanotis is usually a biennial, though sometimes grows as a monocarpic perennial. It flowers during July and August. Favoring a temperate environment, its natural distribution ranges throughout much of northern and central Eurasia and parts of North Africa, from England and Scandinavia to Siberia, and is prevalent in the Carpathian Mountains. It prefers rocky terrain, grassy slopes, or shrubbed areas, with dry, well-drained soil. In Britain, it is found entirely within SSSIs, growing on chalky terrain in the Chiltern Hills and South Downs. The plant has also been introduced to Maryland in the United States. S. libanotis has been identified as invasive. It has not been evaluated by the IUCN, though it is rare in Britain and classified there as Near Threatened.
Seseli libanotis serves, along with S. campestre, as the host species for the parasitic Puccinia libanotidis, or moon carrot rust, a species of the rust genus Puccinia. P. libanotidis was long thought extinct from Britain, having not been recorded since 1946, but it was rediscovered in 2009 through a study by Kew Gardens.


The leaves and root are edible. S. libanotis is useful in honey production and has also been used in folk medicine. Several studies suggest that S. libanotis and other members of Seseli have natural antimicrobial and antioxidant properties.


Setaria parviflora is a species of grass known by the common names marsh bristlegrass, knotroot bristle-grass, bristly foxtail and yellow bristlegrass. It is native to North America, including Mexico and the United States from California to the East Coast, Central America and the West Indies, and South America.
This grass is a perennial with small, knotty rhizomes. It produces stems 30 centimeters to well over one meter tall. The leaf blades are up to 25 centimeters long and under a centimeter wide. The leaves are whitish-green. The inflorescence is a compact, spikelike panicle up to 8 or 10 centimeters long. Surrounding each spikelet are up to 12 yellow or purple bristles. The bristles stay on the stalk after the seeds drop away.
This grass grows in moist habitat. It can grow in salty habitat such as salt marshes.


Setaria viridis is a species of grass known by many common names, including green foxtail, green bristlegrass, and wild foxtail millet. It is sometimes considered a subspecies of Setaria italica. It is native to Eurasia, but it is known on most continents as an introduced species and is closely related to Setaria faberi, a noxious weed. It is a hardy grass which grows in many types of urban, cultivated, and disturbed habitat, including vacant lots, sidewalks, railroads, lawns, and at the margins of fields. It is the wild antecedent of the crop foxtail millet.
This is an annual grass with decumbent or erect stems growing up to a meter long, and known to reach two meters or more at times. The leaf blades are up to 40 centimeters long and 2.5 wide and glabrous. The inflorescence is a dense, compact, spikelike panicle up to 20 centimeters long, growing erect or sometimes nodding at the tip only. Spikelets are 1.8–2.2 mm long. Each is subtended by up to three stiff bristles. Its fertile lemmas are finely cross-wrinkled.
Setaria viridis is often confused with S. faberi, (Chinese or Giant Foxtail), which has sparse, soft hairs on the leaves and a nodding inflorescence. Setaria viridis is closely related to S. italica (Foxtail Millet), which has larger spikelets about 3 mm long and usually smooth, shiny upper lemmas. Foxtail Millet was cultivated in China by 2700 BC and during the Stone Age in Europe.
Setaria viridis has been proposed as a model to study C4 photosynthesis and related bioenergy grasses. It has a short life cycle (6–8 weeks), is transformable and is currently being sequenced. Genetic resources are currently being developed by a number of groups. A method to break the prolonged seed dormancy has been discovered recently and all these could contribute towards making S. viridis a choice monocot genetic model system.


The bay-breasted warbler (Setophaga castanea) is a small species of songbird in the New World warbler family, Parulidae. It is one of thirty-four species in the diverse genus Setophaga. Like all songbirds, or passerines, the species is classified in the order Passeriformes.


Bay-breasted warblers breed in the boreal spruce-fir forests of eastern and central Canada, as well as the extreme northern United States. The species winters in the wet lowland forests of northeastern South America, the Caribbean, and southern Central America, and may be seen during spring and fall migration across the eastern half of the United States in a variety of vegetative communities. Many individuals cross the Gulf of Mexico on their long-distance migration, although some travel north and south along the Mexican shore.


In the breeding season, bay-breasted warblers feed primarily on insects and spiders, especially the spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana). These are gleaned from vegetation, never caught on the wing. To avoid competition with similar species, bay-breasted warblers concentrate their foraging on the breeding grounds to the interior middle portions of coniferous trees. On wintering grounds in the tropics, fruit forms a majority of the diet. Wintering bay-breasted warblers often form mixed-species flocks with other neotropical migrants and resident species. These flocks seek food in the forest canopy, and the bay-breasted warbler is often an aggressive member of the unit, bullying smaller species from potential food sources.


Adult males in breeding plumage are primarily grayish above, with two white wing bars, dark streaks on the back, and a creamy neck patch. The face is black, and the crown, throat, and sides are a dark chestnut color. Breeding females are similar in overall pattern to the males, but are paler and duller. In the nonbreeding season, both sexes gain olive-green feathers on the back, nape, and head. The rufous on the flanks is limited and may even fade away entirely in nonbreeding females. The two white wing bars are present in all plumages.


In breeding plumage, the bay-breasted warbler may be confused with the chestnut-sided warbler (Setophaga pensylvanica), which has similar chestnut coloration on the sides. Chestnut-sided warblers may be easily differentiated by the extent of the chestnut, which does not reach the throat or crown. Chestnut-sided warblers also have a bright yellow crown, dark mask, and white cheek and throat in breeding plumage. In fall, nonbreeding bay-breasted Warblers may look very similar to the blackpoll warbler (Setophaga striata). However, blackpoll warblers never have a hint of chestnut coloration on the flanks, and also have yellowish feet, unlike the black feet of the bay-breasted warbler.


Although currently classified by the IUCN as least concern, bay-breasted warblers, like many songbirds, are facing population declines across their range. A loss of insect prey and global climate change are contributing factors to decline. The global population is estimated to be fewer than 10 million individuals.


The cerulean warbler (Setophaga cerulea) is a small songbird in the family Parulidae. It is a long-distance migrant, breeding in eastern North American hardwood forests. In the non-breeding season, it winters on the eastern slope of the Andes in South America, preferring subtropical forests.
It displays strong sexual dichromatism:  Adult males have cerulean blue and white upperparts, with a black necklace across the breast and black streaks on the back and flanks. Females and immature birds have bluish-green upperparts, a pale stripe over the eye, no streaking, and are yellow below. All have two white wing bars and a thin, pointed bill.
The cerulean warbler is insectivorous and predominantly feeds on insect larvae, though it also takes winged insects. It forages for prey and nests high in forest canopies. Individuals are strongly territorial; males will defend areas of forests. Males arrive on breeding grounds about one to two weeks earlier than females. Breeding and incubation take place from late May to early June.
The species is rated as near threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Red List of endangered species, indicating it is under risk of becoming vulnerable in the near future. The population of the cerulean warbler has been under rapid decline, though in recent years this decline has slowed. Deforestation in its non-breeding range continues to reduce its available habitat.


The cerulean warbler was described in 1810 as Sylvia cerulea by ornithologist Alexander Wilson. In 1811, Wilson described the female as a separate species, Sylvia rara. It was later realized that the two taxa were conspecific, and in 1838 the biologist Charles Lucien Bonaparte merged them together. In 1842, it was placed in the new genus Dendroica introduced by the ornithologist George Robert Gray. In 2011, Dendroica was merged into the genus Setophaga after molecular studies showed that the two genera were not well delineated. The change was implemented as part of the Fifty-second Supplement to the AOU Checklist of North American Birds. The genus name Setophaga is derived from the Greek ses, "moth",  and phagos, "eating". The specific name, cerulea, is derived from caeruleus, Latin for "blue", "azure".
Between 1897 and 1903, it was believed that the name Sylvia cærulea (an unjustified emendation of cerulea) had been preoccupied by the blue-gray gnatcatcher, Polioptila cærulea, as ornithologist John Latham had in 1793 moved the latter species to Sylvia. Therefore, the name Sylvia rara, an obsolete name for the female cerulean warbler, was accepted as Dendroica rara in the Eighth Supplement to the AOU Checklist of North American Birds. However, in 1903, it was found that the change was invalid, and the accepted name reverted to Dendroica cerulea.
The cerulean warbler's close relatives within the genus Setophaga include the Blackburnian warbler (S. fusca), blackpoll warbler (S. striata), chestnust-sided warbler, Wilson's warbler (S. pensylvanica) and bay-breasted warbler (S. castanea). Hybridisations with the northern parula (S. americana) have been observed, indicating a close relationship.
The following cladograms show the position of the cerulean warbler among its closest relatives according to Lovette et al. 2010 (left), and Baiz et al. 2021 (right):
Lovette et al. (2010)
Baiz et al. (2021)


The cerulean warbler is one of the smallest Setophaga wood-warblers, about 11 cm (4.3 in) long, weighing 8–10 g (0.28–0.35 oz), and having a wingspan of 20 cm (7.9 in). Males are slightly larger than females, and older males tend to also be larger. Wing chord measures 62–66 mm (2.4–2.6 in), while the tail is 40.6–42.7 mm (1.60–1.68 in) long. The culmen, or upper edge of the beak, measures 9.5–9.8 mm (0.37–0.39 in) long, 3.5 mm (0.14 in) wide and 3.5 mm (0.14 in) height.
The cerulean warbler is strongly sexually dichromatic. Adult males are a deep, cerulean blue over the entire back, and are white below. There are prominent dark streaks across the flanks. A "necklace"  or breast band, a line of color across the neck, varies from blue to near black. Older individuals have stronger colors across the entire body, including brighter whites, darker streaking, and wider breast bands. Adult females are yellow underneath, while the back and crown have a blue-green tint. Females also possess a distinct pale supercilium, or eye stripe, just above the eye.
Immature individuals are generally similar to adult females, though the back may be more yellowish. All fledged individuals, regardless of their age or sex, have two prominent white wing-bars and white spots on the tail.
The beak and legs of the cerulean warbler vary in color depending on an individual's age and sex. Adult males have a black beak, with the lower half a slightly lighter dark grey. Adult females have dark grey beaks that may become dark brown on the lower half. Recently fledged birds have a brownish beak. Adults have black legs and brown irises, while juveniles have dark brown legs and dark brown irises. Hatchlings have pink bare parts, including the beak and legs, and black eyes.
The song is a buzzed accelerating zray zray zray zray zeeee. The primary call is a buzzy, metallic zzee. Males use their songs to attract potential mates and to mark out their territory. Cerulean warblers are also capable of imitating the songs of other birds alongside their typical song. Females rarely sing, but often call when nesting. An alarm call is used to signal the arrival of a predator or another bird threatening the nest.


The cerulean warbler's preferred summer habitat consists of large, unfragmented mature deciduous hardwood forests. Nesting takes place in the top canopy, often above heights of 30 m (98 ft), and territories are typically about 2 ha (4.9 acres). Foraging is done throughout the mid to high canopy. Generally, to support a population of cerulean warblers, a forested area of greater than 700 ha (1,700 acres) is required. Riparian areas are commonly selected.
The breeding range extends from southern Tennessee to southern Ontario, and is bounded in the east by the Atlantic Ocean and on the west by the Great Plains. The majority of the population breeds in forests of the Appalachian mountains, with smaller numbers in forests throughout the United States and Canada. Historically, the cerulean warbler was common to abundant as far south as Alabama and Mississippi, but loss of habitat in these southern regions has caused the centre of its breeding range to shift northwards.
The cerulean warbler migrates distances of over 5,000 km (3,100 mi) between its breeding and non-breeding ranges. In the spring, it takes an overland route through Central America, passing over water only to cross the Gulf of Mexico at the Yucatán Peninsula. In the autumn, it may overfly the Caribbean Sea, crossing from Florida to Cuba onto continental South America. Migration takes from 40–70 days; much of this time is made up of stopovers, where birds will remain at one individual location for 2–18 days.
The non-breedingrange covers a broad area of northern South America, and extends southwards along the Andes mountains. Individuals have been found as far south as Bolivia, while in the north it is often found throughout Colombia and Venezuela. The cerulean warbler prefers tall forest; its occurrence is therefore strongly correlated with the presence of old-growth subtropical forests or shade coffee plantations. It is found at altitudes of 500–2,000 m (1,600–6,600 ft) in its non-breeding range.
The cerulean warbler has been recorded as a vagrant to Iceland. It has also been recorded in Brazil, far outside of its range.


The cerulean warbler forages throughout the forest canopy, predominantly at middle to top layers. It hops from branch to branch, gleaning small soft-bodied insects from leaves and twigs. In the non-breeding season, it may also glean insects from flowers. Its preferred prey consists of butterfly and moth (lepidopteran larvae), though it supplements its diet with winged insects. In its non-breeding range, it preferentially forages on trees of the genus Inga.
Foraging is vertically segregated; males tend to forage at somewhat higher elevations in the canopy than females. The difference in height average is about 2 m (6.6 ft). They stay with mixed-species flocks as they forage, sharing spaces with species such as the American redstart (Setophaga ruticilla), Blackburnian warbler, and Tennessee warbler (Leiothlypis peregrina). The other species forage at different heights and substrates, preventing competition. At the high elevations and relatively sparser vegetation that the cerulean warbler prefers, the gleaning technique it uses is more effective than aerial maneouvreing. Foraging locations tend to be lower than nest placements.


The cerulean warbler is monogamous. Its short breeding season allows it to produce one brood a year. Individuals are very aggressive towards others of the same sex during the breeding season. Typical conflict comprises the use of song to mark a territory, as well as physical conflict such as attacks in which individuals may fall from heights of 20 m (66 ft). Female cerulean warblers have been observed to attack other females and destroy their eggs.
Nest construction takes about 7 days. The female lays from 3 to 5 eggs over the course of about 7 days, incubation lasts for around 12 days, and nestlings remain altricial for an average of 11 days. Only the female broods the nest, but the male will frequently provide food for the female and for the young.  The female occasionally responds with a call. During nesting, the female vocalizes a chip call whenever it leaves the nest. In response, the male returns to the nest, guarding it from a nearby perch.
Extra-pair copulation, in which mating occurs outside of a monogamous pair, is known to occur. Based on blood analyses, several young may be sired by a different male than that which occupies the territory on which the young are found, making it likely that males travelling outside of their own territories seek extra-pair copulations. Males engage in mate guarding, in which they will remain close to the mate during periods of foraging, nest building, or nest site selection. The male will also frequently sing a "whisper song"; the female occasionally responds with a call.
During nest incubation, and when young are in the nestling stage, the female may also sing. The song, a more complex variation of the typical nest call, is a metallic zee zeet zee zeet zeet.
Both males and females are involved in nest construction and together choose a nest site. Sites are usually located on horizontal branches high in the forest canopy, and are usually shaded by vegetation. The cerulean warbler prefers to nest over an empty space where there are no branches for 1 m (3.3 ft) or more. The nest itself is made from tree bark, grasses, and lichens, woven together using caterpillar silk and spider thread. If a nesting attempt is unsuccessful, individuals will often reuse materials from an old nest, especially binding elements. Cerulean warblers have been observed to construct "double-decker" nests, in which a new nest is overlaid atop an existing one. Nearly all known nests have been in deciduous trees, but nesting has been recorded in pine trees in southern Indiana.
After the eggs have hatched, nestlings are fed by their parents, mainly consuming lepidopteran larvae. The fledglings become independent about 12 days after leaving the nest. Survival rates range from 34-62% for the fledgling stage of development. Newly fledged birds are often killed by chipmunks through predation. Young individuals have somewhat different feeding patterns than adults, preferring riparian areas with relatively little foliage.


The cerulean warbler's preferred nesting sites, located high in the forest canopy, reduce the prevalence of nest predation. However, its eggs and young still fall victim to predators such as raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks, snakes, and birds, in particular blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata).
The cerulean warbler is known to be parasitized by blood parasites such as Haemoproteus paruli. Nest parasitism by brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater) occurs, but is less common in the dense interior canopy the cerulean warbler prefers.


The cerulean warbler is currently rated a near threatened species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It is the fastest declining Neotropical migrant songbird. Among the many threats it faces, its wintering habitat in the northern Andes is dwindling rapidly. Cerulean warblers depend on shade coffee plantations for the mature forest habitat they require. This traditional farming technique faces pressure from fluctuating world coffee prices, and many tracts of shade coffee are being converted to higher-yield sun coffee or other crops.
In fragmented forest areas, the cerulean warbler is vulnerable to nest parasitism by the brown-headed cowbird. Historically, the preferred habitat of tall forest interiors protected it from brood parasitism, but deforestation has caused the cerulean warbler to often choose nest locations accessible to cowbirds.
This bird's numbers are declining faster than any other warbler species in the USA; its population in 2006 was less than one-fifth of what it was 40 years before. The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is working with its Colombian partner, Fundación ProAves, to protect wintering habitat for cerulean warblers and other migratory songbirds. In 2008, the partnership created the Cerulean Warbler Bird Reserve, the first protected area created for a neotropical migrant. In an effort to advance protection of the cerulean warbler, ABC and its South American partners (Fundacion ProAves, ECOAN and Fundacion Jocotoco), in 2009 produced a Cerulean Warbler Wintering Ground Conservation Plan.


Artist and ornithologist John James Audubon illustrates the cerulean warbler in Birds of America (London, 1827–38) as Plate 48, where two birds are shown perched in a dahoon holly bush. The painting was originally produced in 1822, and engraved and colored by Robert Havell's London workshops. The original watercolor by Audubon was purchased by the New-York Historical Society, where it remains as of 2022.
The novelist Jonathan Franzen uses the cerulean warbler as a plot device in his 2010 novel Freedom.
In San Vicente, Colombia, the cerulean warbler is commemorated in an annual migratory bird festival.
The Man in the Yellow Hat publishes a book about the cerulean warbler in the episode "The Big Picture" of Curious George.


The golden-cheeked warbler (Setophaga chrysoparia) is an endangered species of bird that breeds in Central Texas, from Palo Pinto County southwestward along the eastern and southern edge of the Edwards Plateau to Kinney County. The golden-cheeked warbler is the only bird species with a breeding range endemic to Texas.


The golden-cheeked warbler is very striking due to its bright yellow cheeks that are contrasted by its black throat and back. It is also identified by its unique buzzing song emerging from the wooded canyons where it breeds. Golden-cheeked warblers breed in 33 counties in central Texas and are dependent on ashe juniper (blueberry juniper or cedar) for their fine bark strips used as nesting material.


The golden-cheeked warbler can be found in numerous state parks within Texas. These parks include Colorado Bend State Park (SP), Dinosaur Valley SP, Garner SP, Guadalupe River SP, Honey Creek State Natural Area (SNA), Hill Country SNA, Kerr Management Area, Longhorn Cavern SNA, Lost Maples SNA, Meridian SP, Pedernales Falls SP, Possum Kingdom SP, and South Llano River SP.
The golden-cheeked warbler is endemic to Texas and Mexico. Their habitat can range from moist, to dry areas around central and southern Texas. The nesting habitat in the further moist realms can be discovered in tall, closed canopy, compressed, mature stands of ashe juniper trees along with Texas, shin, live, lacey, and post oak trees. In the drier spheres of Texas, golden-cheeked warblers can be found in upland juniper-oak woodlands off of flat topography. They use ashe juniper bark and spider webs to build their nests. Females lay three to four eggs. When migration and winter hits the habitat stays relatively similar: a variety of short-lived evergreen forests with pines between 3,300 and 8,300 feet.


Golden-cheeked warblers will only remain in Texas for the breeding season, from March to June. They will migrate with other songbird species along Mexico's Sierra Madre Oriental. By the first week of March, the warblers will return to Texas to breed. During the winter season (November–February), warblers will travel to Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Mexico.


The golden-cheeked warbler is known to feed on various forms of insects and spiders, caterpillars are also noted as a primary source of food during the breeding season. This species is completely insectivorous. The method for catching insects is by plucking them from all surfaces by being able to reach them through flight.


Once a female has chosen a mate, she alone builds the nest. The nest is made of strips of juniper bark, rootlets, grasses, cobwebs, cocoons, and can contain animal fur to line to the outer portions of the nest. Nearly all of warbler nests contain juniper bark, and it has been seen that females do not make a nest without the presence of the bark. Golden-cheeked warblers lay 3-4 creamy-white eggs, less than 3/4 inch long and ½ inch wide. Incubation begins one day before the last egg is laid. For approximately the 12 days, the female warbler incubates the eggs. The male is for the most part inattentive at this time, joining the female only when she forages for insects away from the nest.


The breeding range of the warbler ranges to an extent of only about twenty acres, so spaces for habitation are limited. Many spots of warbler habitation have been cleared for the construction of houses, roads, and stores or to grow crops or grass for livestock. Juniper trees, the primary nesting place for warblers, have also been cut down and used for different timber products, especially before the 1940s. Other woodlands were flooded when large lakes were constructed. Sitting at the top of the endangered list (of species in North America) since May 1990, different projects are currently underway to restore the habitat of the Golden-Cheeked warbler. Efforts include The Safe Harbor agreement between Environmental Defense and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with the goal of rebuilding and creating new, safe habitats for the warbler (along with other endangered species). The Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Plan (BCCP) is another project responsible for building warbler preserves, with the goal of eventually adding a total of 41,000 acres to the warbler's habitat. These initiatives along with many others encourage landowners to learn more about the warbler (along with other species that inhabit their property) so local land owners may provide proper maintenance and protection of the warbler's habitat. A project that significantly aided habitat restoration for the warbler includes the U.S. Army's success at Fort Hood in protecting the largest patch of juniper-oak trees.


The most serious problems that are facing the golden-cheeked warbler today are the habitats that are being lost and destroyed due to their limited and specific habitat requirements. Between the years of 1962 and 1974, the population estimated to an 8 to 12% drop. Based on intensive surveys and observations, it was counted that in 2015, there were 716 singing males within 39 acres in Texas.