I had forgotten their existence, until I read a story at NPR...
Park rangers in the Northern California Redwood Forest are protecting a decades-old secret. Actually, eight of them: Albino redwood trees...
Kuty points to a white bush. It's about six feet tall and it's sprouted from the base of a normal redwood tree.
Mr. KUTY It's not particularly tall. It's not particularly big. And so it could look dead.
STANDEN: Until you get up close. Albino redwood trees lack chlorophyll. Their needles are limp and waxy. They're the exact color of a glow-in-the-dark star you might find in a kid's bedroom. And while no one really knows for sure, albino redwood trees may be extremely rare.
Mr. KUTY How rare? Some people say there's 25 in the world.
STANDEN: And yet, eight of them live here. This park has the largest known concentration of albino redwoods anywhere, and that makes it the epicenter for a scientific mystery...
Without chlorophyll, they can't photosynthesize, meaning they can't convert sunlight into energy. The only reason that albino redwoods survive at all is that they are connected at the root to a parent tree from which they will suck energy for their entire lives...
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