26 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
The Bie TreE (Wellingtonia gigantea, Lindl.). 
Dr. C. F. Winslow, in ‘The California Farmer, a weekly journal 
published at San Francisco, has given an account of his excursion from 
** Murphy's Camp” (2400 feet of elevation), to the site of the “ Big 
Tree,” on the very stump of which he writes his letter (August 8, 1854), 
the spot itself being designated (at least by him) ** Washington Mam- 
moth Grove.” 
If this account is to be depended upon (and it must be confessed 
the learned Doctor’s style is both flowery and hyperbolical), we learn 
J some new and interesting particulars respecting this gigantic tree :— 
1, that the accounts brought home by our sober English traveller, 
Mr. William Lobb, do not give us the full height to which this Pine , 
attains, by one-fourth; 2, that the locality seems to be circumscribed 
to an area of a few acres; and, 3, what concerns us more, NOW that 
. Messrs. Veitch and Sons have enabled us to possess living plants, that 
_ the soil and atmosphere at the place of growth are singularly humid ; 
and in this we think the Doctor is likely to be correct. 
Omitting, then, his mention of **the sublime thoughts, such as have 
rarely before impressed his soul,”—“ of such a nature that he often in- 
voluntarily surrendered himself to the idea that he was approaching 
the visible and actual presence of the Great One who revealed himself 
_ to Moses on the heights of Sinai," etc.,—we shall confine ourselves to 
the following extracts :— 
e The road (from Murphy's Camp), gradually ascending for several . 
over a varied landscape, becomes afterwards more level, or rather . 
undulates and winds for a long stretch among hills and valleys thickly 
ded, and fit for farms and deer-parks. During the last three miles 
scent is steady and through a virgin wilderness of Pines, Firs, 
Arbor-vitzes, and other cone-bearing trees, whose magnitude 
reeptibly increases with the altitude of the locality. The whole sur- 
of the hill-sides is covered with herbage or plants, more or less 
rdant, and in spots there is a freshness to the verdure which reminds 
one of spring, and which contrasts strongly with the arid and dusty 
ins and hills of the lower sections of country. The wild raspberry, 
awberry, pea, and hazelnut mingle their humble or more prominent 
agi with the diversified undergrowths of the forests; and here and 
re new and attractive flowers struck my eye so pleasingly, that I was 
