From Ancient Giants, Finding New Life to Help the Planet

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FORT DICK, Calif. — Shooting skyward like a jagged knife, the giant stump in a cul-de-sac in this Northern California town is by all appearances dead and gone: ashen gray, hollowed by fire and sheared at about 40 feet by coastal winds or lightning.

But to Michael Taylor, a professional big-tree hunter, there are tantalizing signs of the stump’s potential.

“This snag is partially alive,” he explained, pointing to dozens of green sprouts on the trunk. “It has a lot of energy in it, and it will keep sending these up. They just can’t kill this thing.”

It is just those sprouts that lie at the heart of a plan hatched by a group of tree enthusiasts to clone — and then mass-produce — a collection of colossal redwoods, some of which date to before the birth of Jesus and can soar nearly 40 stories, the tallest living things on earth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/us/10trees.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23