The world's biggest tree starts small. The seeds of a giant Sequoia look like flakes of oatmeal and are thin and papery. The cones they come out of are only two or 3 inches long – probably smaller than the pine cones you've seen. And of course, when they're new, gangly seedlings, the trees are small, too, but give them a few hundred years, and just one of those seedlings will weigh as much as 300 cars – and be taller than a 20 story building. Even in the world of towering trees, Sequoia's are giants.

The biggest tree in the world, a 270 foot tall Sequoia called the general Sherman, is 36.5 feet wide at ground level – almost the length of a city bus! Sequoia trunks can be so big, a rancher wants carved a one room house out of one, and the tree kept growing.