Albino Redwood

This page is an off-shoot of Largest Coast Redwoods

Copyright 2009 by Mario Vaden

The rare white redwoods called albinos are also called "ghost trees." Albino redwoods are very rare.

So far, I see no evidence to prove statements that they are parasites. Not in the sense of germinating and later attaching their roots to mature redwood roots. The albino redwoods appear to be sprouts that originated from a host redwood: a part that formed from it. Being part of a redwood does not make something parasitic. Take flowers, bark and cones for example. All are attached to the redwood and receive what they need from it. And all orginated from it.

There are supposed to be about 50 known to exist, the tallest being about 70 feet tall. If 50 are known to exist, my estimate is that 100 probably exist. But the extra 50 are probably inches tall. My reasoning is that if Lost Monarch the largest coast redwood was not discovered until 1998, there must be undiscovered plants under 12 inches tall.

If you find an albino redwood, don't removed twigs for souvenirs or for propagation. There is too little albino foliage in existence to risk picking their bones clean.

At least 6 albino redwoods grow in Humboldt Redwoods State Park of Northern California near Highway 101. The location of one was published, but I want to skip detailed directions here because of how trafficmy site gets. But it is within 1.5 miles of Founders Grove near Avenue of the Giants.

Another albino redwood is 3 to 4 miles north of Redcrest, California. About 20' tall.

Big Sur campground forest was reported to have a small albino redwood too.

One man, Will Russell, Ph.D., an Assistant Professor at San Jose State University, replied for a Q&A at sempervirens.org, that he encountered about a dozen during hikes in the Santa Cruz mountains.

There is no guarantee that one you read about will still be there when you go looking. The lifespan is more or less unknown, but every reference I found says they don't live a long time on the redwood scale of life.

Lacking chlorophyll for photosythesis, albino redwoods are dependent upon a parent redwood host for nutrition. Albino redwoods are actually part of another redwood. They can grow out of a burl growth too. Basically, they begin as basal sprouts or sucker growth growth from roots.