It has a name, the President, bestowed about 90 years ago by admiring humans. It’s a giant sequoia, a member of Sequoiadendron giganteum, one of several surviving species of redwoods.

“Big Tree mania” set in, William Tweed writes in a 2016 history of the giant sequoia. Pieces of Dowd’s tree went on tour to San Francisco and to New York City. By 1855, a hotel had been ...