IN PICTURES - giant sequoia and bristlecone pines deer California is home to both the largest and the oldest living beings in the world. Meet the champs.

The redwoods are monuments. A bit like at home, Notre-Dame de Paris. Americans still lik

to think that their country is young go there as a pilgrimage to see the giants who lived there for so long. Motionless and silent in their forests, they belong to the long time of history, all these ancient civilizations whose offspring have landed in California since the mid-nineteenth century. 

To admire, we must move away from the Pacific coast. Take due east to the Sierra Nevada. It is in this mountain that the giant sequoias live. The largest of them is the biggest tree in the world: 1487 cubic meters of wood! Further east, in the White Mountains, which rise to 4,342 meters above sea level, bristlecone pines push, which are the oldest trees in the world. The oldest of all is more than 5,000 years: he already had five centuries of existence when was built the pyramid of Cheops.