ON THE DERIVATION OF AMERICAN PLANTS. 725 



them trees which are the wonder of the world. As I stood in their 

 shade, in the groves of Mariposa and Calaveras, and again, under the 

 canopy of the commoner redwood, raised on columns of such majestic 

 height and ample girth, it occurred to me that I could not do better 

 than to share with you, upon this occasion, some of the thoughts which 

 possessed my mind. In their development they may perhaps lead us 

 up to questions of considerable scientific interest. 



I shall not detain you with my remarks (which would now be trite) 

 upon the rise or longevity of these far-famed Sequoia trees, or of the 

 sugar-pines, incense-cedar, and firs, associated with them, of which 

 even the prodigious bulk of the dominating Sequoia does not sensibly 

 diminish the grandeur. Although no account and no photographic 

 representation of either species of the far-famed Sequoia trees can give 

 an adequate idea of their singular majesty still less of their beauty 

 yet my interest in them did not culminate merely nor mainly in con- 

 sideration of their size and age. Other trees in other parts of the world 

 may claim to be older. Certain Australian gum-trees {eucalypti) are 

 said to be taller. Some, we are told, rise so high that they might even 

 cast a flicker of shadow upon the summit of the Pyramid of Cheops. 

 Yet the oldest of them doubtless grew from seed which was shed long 

 after the names of the pyramid-builders had been forgotten. So far as 

 we can judge from the actual counting of the layers of several trees, no 

 Sequoia now alive can much overdate the Christian era. Nor was I 

 much impressed with an attraction of man's adding. That the more 

 remarkable of these trees should bear distinguishing appellations seems 

 proper enough. But the tablets of personal names which are affixed 

 to many of them in the most visited groves as if the memory of more 

 or less notable people of our day might be made more enduring by the 

 juxtaposition does suggest some incongruity. When we consider 

 that a hand's-breadth at the circumference of any one of the venerable 

 trunks so placarded has recorded in annual lines the lifetime of the in- 

 dividual thus associated with it, one may question whether the next 

 hand's-breadth may not measure the fame of some of the names thus 

 ticketed for adventitious immortality. Whether it be the man or the 

 tree that is honored in the connection, probably either would live as 

 long in fact and in memory without it. 



One notable thing about these Sequoia trees is their isolation. 

 Most of the trees associated with them are of peculiar species, and 

 some of them are nearly as local. Yet every pine, fir, and cypress in 

 California is in some sort familiar, because it has near relations in 

 other parts of the world. But the redwoods have none. The red- 

 wood including in that name the two species of " big trees " be- 

 longs to the general cypress family, but is sui generis. Thus isolated 

 systematically, and extremely isolated geographically, and so wonder- 

 ful in size and port, they, more than other trees, suggest questions. 

 Were they created, thus local and lonely, denizens of California only ; 



