162 Dr. B. Seemann on the Mammoth-tree of Upper California. 



from all parts of the country now thronged to the place, making 

 it quite a fashionable resort of Californian society, and inducing 

 Mr. Wm. W. Lapham to establish there, as early as July 1853, 

 a hotel, with all the comforts the nature of the country would 

 admit of. About the same time Mr. William Lobb, the botanical 

 collector of Mr. VeitcVs Nursery at Exeter and Chelsea, visited 

 the grove, and did not fail to procure leaves, cones, specimens of 

 the wood, and an excellent sketch of one of the trees (drawn 

 from nature by Mr. Wm. W. Lapham). These materials, having 

 been transmitted to England, were placed at the disposal of 

 Dr. Lindley, who thought he recognized in them a new genus of 

 ConifercBy on which he conferred, in commemoration of the 

 Duke of Wellington, and in consideration of the huge size of 

 the tree, the name of Wellingtonia gigantea. 



It was supposed, at the time when the first scientific accounts 

 were published in England, that this tree might possibly be 

 identical with a Taxodium described by the unfortunate Douglas, 

 in one of his letters to Sir William J. Hooker (Bot. Mag. Comp. 

 ii. p. 150), as imparting to the mountains of California a most 

 gloomy appearance, and attaining the height of 300 feet. Dou- 

 glas had transmitted no specimens with his account ; but a barren 

 branchlet of Pinus (Abies) hracteata, Don, was thought by Sir 

 W. J. Hooker to be part of the plant alluded to, and figured by 

 him in the 'Icones Plantarum,^ t. 379, as Taxodium semper- 

 virens. This mistake was afterwards corrected by the author of 

 it himself, but unfortunately not until Endlicher (Synopsis Coni- 

 ferarum, p. 198) had founded a new species of Sequoia (S, gigantea, 

 Endl.) upon this figure, with which he also coupled Douglases 

 account. The referring of Hooker's figure to its proper species 

 (viz. Pinus {Abies) bracteata, Don) left it again doubtful to which 

 plant Douglases account referred, and justified in a measure the 

 supposition of Dr. Lindley and others that it might possibly 

 apply to the newly discovered Mammoth-tree; but this sup- 

 position has not been verified. Douglas, in saying, " The great 

 beauty of Californian vegetation is a species of Taxodium, which 

 gives the mountains a most peculiar, I was almost going to say 

 awful, appearance — something which plainly tells us we are not 

 in Europe," evidently alludes to rather a common plant, such 

 as the Redwood ( Taxodium, or now Sequoia sempervirens) really 

 is in the mountains of Upper California; he cannot possibly 

 speak of the Mammoth-tree, as that, if not confined to the grove 

 called after it, is at all events very local. We are, besides, fur- 

 nished with a historical proof that Douglas's account does not 

 relate to any other plant than the Redwood (Sequoia semper- 

 virens, Endl.). Mr. W. Lobb, who avows himself perfectly fami- 

 liar with the route followed by Douglas, has shown (Gardeners' 



