Identification
Three species, one family name. Each has a distinct set of field features that make confident identification straightforward once you know what to look for.
Overview
All three redwoods share a family resemblance (reddish bark, tall form, coniferous habit) but each has a distinct character in the field. Bark texture, foliage arrangement, cone shape, and winter behaviour together make confident identification straightforward once you know the cues.
This Learn page is a practical companion to the species overview. It focuses on how to tell them apart, not on their biography. If you want background on each species, start with the species page.
The most physically imposing of the three. In Britain, mature specimens stand out from a distance: a massive trunk, large descending branches that curve back upward at the tips, and that unmistakable reddish bulk at the base. The bark alone is usually enough for a confident ID.
No other tree in Britain combines that thickness, that sponginess, and that orange-red colour. If you can reach the bark, press it. You will feel it push back.
Tall and narrow in the UK canopy. Often found with multiple stems rising from the base: particularly trees that were coppiced or storm-damaged. The flat, fern-like foliage spray is the most reliable field feature.
Bark is similar in colour to giant sequoia but noticeably thinner and less spongy. If you can reach a low branch, the foliage arrangement will confirm the ID.
The only deciduous redwood, and the easiest of the three to identify in autumn and winter. Bare from November while the other two remain fully leafed. In summer, the soft opposite foliage and strongly conical form distinguish it clearly.
Most UK specimens are post-1950 plantings, so they tend to be smaller than the Victorian-era sequoias. The base often shows distinctive fluted buttressing even on younger trees.
Both have reddish-brown, fibrous, deeply furrowed bark. Press it if you can reach it: giant sequoia is unmistakably spongy, pushing back under pressure; coast redwood is firmer and noticeably thinner. At distance, giant sequoia bark reads more orange-red; coast redwood tends more greyish-brown. Check the foliage to confirm;scale-like bristled shoots on giant sequoia versus flat two-ranked needles on coast redwood.
Both have feathery needle-like foliage that looks similar at first glance. The diagnostic difference is arrangement: coast redwood needles alternate along the shoot; dawn redwood needles are in strict opposite pairs. Hold a branchlet flat and look at the base of each needle pair. Dawn redwood also has softer, slightly lighter-green needles and a more obviously neat conical silhouette.
Dawn redwood is the only redwood that drops its needles,but European larch and Japanese larch are also bare in winter and are common across UK plantations. Compare the form: dawn redwood holds a strongly conical, symmetrical silhouette; larches are broader and more irregular. Dawn redwood cones hang on obvious long stalks; larch cones are small and stalkless. In autumn, dawn redwood turns orange-brown; larches turn yellow.
On trees under 20 years old, or when you can only see the canopy from below, bark alone may not settle it. Focus on the foliage: giant sequoia shoots are three-dimensional and bristly, the leaves wrapping spirally around the shoot in all directions; coast redwood shoots are flat and two-ranked, lying in one plane like a comb. Run your fingers along a shoot: giant sequoia feels prickly in every direction; coast redwood has a flat, fern-like feel.
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