68 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



7. SEQUOIA, Endl. 



Resinous aromatic trees, with tall massive lobed trunks, thick bark of 2 layers, the 

 outer composed of fibrous scales, the inner thin, close and firm, soft, durable, straight- 

 grained red heartwood, thin nearly white sapwood, short stout horizontal branches, 

 terete lateral branchlets deciduous in the autumn, and scaly or naked buds. Leaves 

 ovate-lanceolate or linear and spreading in 2 ranks especially on young trees and 

 branches, or linear, acute, compressed, keeled on the back and closely appressed or 

 spreading at the apex, the two forms appearing sometimes on the same branch or on 

 different branches of the same tree. Flowers minute, solitary, monoecious, appearing 

 in early spring from buds formed the previous autumn, the staminate terminal in the 

 axils of upper leaves, ovoid or oblong, surrounded by an involucre of numerous im- 

 bricated ovate acute and apiculate bracts, with numerous spirally disposed filaments 

 dilated into ovate acute subpeltate connectives bearing on their inner face 2-5 pendu- 

 lous globose 2-valved anther-cells; the pistillate terminal, ovoid or oblong, composed 

 of numerous spirally imbricated ovate scales abruptly keeled on the back, the keels 

 produced into short or elongated points closely adnate to the short ovule-bearing 

 scales rounded above and bearing below their -upper margin in 2 rows 5-7 ovules at 

 first erect, becoming reversed. Fruit an ovoid or short-oblong pendulous cone ma- 

 turing during the first or second season, persistent after the escape of the seeds, its 

 scales formed by the enlargemeut of the united flower and ovuliferous scales, becom- 

 ing woody, bearing large deciduous resin-glands, gradually enlarged upward and 

 widening at the apex into a narrow thickened oblong disk transversely depressed 

 through the middle and sometimes tipped with small points. Seeds 5-7 under each 

 scale, oblong-ovate, compressed; seed-coat membranaceous, produced into broad thin 

 lateral wings; cotyledons 4-6, longer than the inferior radicle. 



Sequoia, widely scattered with several species over the* northern hemisphere during 

 the cretaceous and tertiary epochs, is now confined to the mountains of California, 

 where two species exist. 



The name of the genus is formed from Sequoiah, the inventor of the Cherokee 

 alphabet. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES. 



Leaves of 2 forms, mostly spreading in 2 ranks; cones maturing- in one season; buds scaly. 



1. S. sempervirens (G). 



Leaves ovate, acute or lanceolate, slightly spreading or compressed ; cones maturing in 



their second season ; buds naked. 2. S. Wellingtonia (G). 



1. Sequoia sempervirens, Endl. Redwood. 



Leaves of secondary branches and of lower branches of young trees lanceolate, 

 more or less falcate, acute or acuminate and usually tipped with slender rigid points, 

 slightly thickened on the revolute margins, decurrent at the base, spreading in 2 ranks 

 by a half-turn at their base, ^'-^ lo^^g? about ^' wide, obscurely keeled and marked 

 above by 2 narrow bands of stomata, glaucous and stomatiferous below on each 

 side of their conspicuous midribs, on leading shoots disposed in many ranks, more 

 or less spreading or appressed, ovate or ovate-oblong, incurved at the rounded apicu- 

 late apex, thickened, rounded, and stomatiferous on the lower surface, concave, promi- 

 nently keeled and covered with stomata on the upper surface, usually about ^' long; 

 dying and turning reddish brown at least two years before falling. Flowers opening 



