The Redwood of the Porta das Lapas

Bucaco's second redwood stands 70 metres from the Porta das Lapas, the forest's western gate, on the path down to the Lago Grande where the walled forest's own cork oak already grows. At 45 metres tall it matches the height of the sequoia by the Fonte de Santa Teresa on the other side of the forest, with a slightly narrower trunk, 5.04 metres round against 5.58. A second pair of redwoods stood by the ruined Ermida de Santo Elias, off any path the forest maintains; this one is the reachable one. It stands on a path visitors already walk to reach the Lago Grande, 450 metres off the forest's main route but on mapped ground the whole way. Sequoia sempervirens needs fog to thrive outside its native California coast, and Bucaco's Atlantic hillside supplies enough of it that this one has grown as tall in Portugal as many of its relatives do at home, part of a collection of the world's conifers that nineteenth century plant hunters spent decades assembling behind this forest wall.