SEQUOIADENDRON (WELLINGTONIA)

• Emo Court is especially well-known for its examples of Sequoiadendron giganteum (Wellingtonia)
• Wellingtonia seedlings were brought back to the British Isles and Ireland from America in 1853 and were named after the Duke of Wellington who had died in 1850
• The Wellingtonia Avenue at Emo Court is one mile long and is said to be the longest of its kind
• The trees were planted in 1853 by the 3^rd Earl of Portarlington
• The avenue is mentioned in “The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland” by Augustine Henry and Henry John Elwes (published 1906). At that time the trees were 70 feet high and 10 feet in girth although “growing on poor shallow limestone soil”
• Augustine Henry also mentions an individual specimen of 81 feet on the lawn
• The finest Wellingtonia in Ireland mentioned by Henry was also in Queen’s County (Co Laois) at Ballykilcavan near Stradbally and was 95 feet in height
• Young Wellingtonia trees were planted in 2005/6 to fill in the gaps on the avenue
• The age of the oldest Sequoiadendrum felled in the United States was estimated at 3200 years
• The red squirrels particularly like the cones