One occasion, I examined some pine and redwood that had been exposed to some very severe conditions in a cooling tower used for direct contact with a process water. Pine was destroyed and redwood just seemed immune to the damage.
I had among other optics, a nomarski interference contrast setup for the Zeiss. The 3D like and color image at 400-800X magnification was stunning in detail. Pine fibers are sort of like spaghetti noodles where you line them up parallel by hand then try to hand stack a 2nd, 3rd, etc. layer on top of them giving quite a bit of imperfection and randomness. Nature was messy in creating pine. Redwood is the complete opposite of pine. Think of pine being a clown car and redwood being an Aston Martin. Tight, orderly layers of cellulose with these layers separated by a strong sheet of cellulose, all of which infused with tannin. Too bad redwood trees don’t grow like a weed like southern pines.
Yes redwoods are an amazing tree. My only exposure to this beautiful tree is through the media(I’m a Tennessee boy) I love trees of all types, from Japanese dwarfs to Sequoias. Loved to do carpentry in my younger days. Love the small of sawdust and freshly cut lumber.
Redwoods have some increditable characteristics(as you have said.)
Sad that they do not grow quicker but then the traits they possess likely would not have developed(long life, resistance to fire and rot, insects, etc.)
The people in California are lucky to have these majestic living sentinels of a bygone age(Dinosaurs, I believe) in their backyards.
Would love to walk among these giants in the forests before I take a permanent dirt nap.