CONIFERS 



69 



in late winter or very early spring; staminate ovate, obtuse ; pistillate with about 

 20 broadly ovate acute scales tipped with elongated and incurved or short points. 

 Fruit oblong, f -1' long, i' broad, its scales gradually enlarged from slender stipes 

 abruptly dilated above into disks penetrated by deep narrow grooves, and usually 

 without tips; seeds about ^q' long, light brown, with wings as broad as their body. 



A tree, from 200^-340 high, with a slightly tapering and irregularly lobed trunk 

 usually free of branches for 75-100, usually 10-15, rarely 28 in diameter at 

 the much buttressed base, slender branches, clothed with branchlets spreading in 

 2 ranks and forming while the tree is young an open narrow pyramid, on old trees 

 becoming stout and 

 horizontal, and form- 

 ing a narrow rather 

 compact and very 

 irregular head re- 

 markably small in 

 proportion to the 

 height and size of 

 the trunk, and slen- 

 der leading branch- 

 lets covered at the 

 end of three or four 

 years after the leaves 

 fall with cinnamon- 

 brown scaly bark. 

 Buds with numerous 

 loosely imbricated 



ovate acute scales persistent on the base of the branchlet. Bark 6'-12' thick, divided 

 into rounded ridges and separated on the surface into long narrow dark brown 

 fibrous scales often broken transversely and in falling disclosing the bright cinnamon- 

 red inner bark. Wood light, soft, not strong, close-grained, easily split and worked, 

 very durable in contact with the soil, clear light red; largely manufactured into 

 lumber and used for shingles, fence-posts, railway-ties, wine-butts, and for building 

 purposes. 



Distribution. Southern borders of Oregon, southward near the coast to Monterey 

 County, California, rarely found more than twenty or thirty miles from the coast, or 

 beyond the influence of the ocean fogs, or over 3000 above the sea-level; often form- 

 ing in northern California pure forests occupying the sides of ravines and the banks 

 of streams; southward growing usually in small groves scattered among other trees; 

 most abundant and of its largest size north of Cape Mendocino. 



Often cultivated as an ornamental tree in the temperate countries of Europe. 



2. Sequoia Wellingtonia, Seem. Big Tree. 



Leaves ovate and acuminate, or lanceolate, rounded and thickened on the lower 

 surface, concave on the upper surface, marked by bands of stomata on both sides 

 of the obscure midribs, rigid, sharp-pointed, decurrent below, spreading or closely 

 appressed above the middle, ^'-\' or on leading shoots ^ long. Flowers opening in 

 late winter and early spring; staminate in great profusion over the whole tree, ter- 

 minal, with ovate acute or acuminate connectives; pistillate with 25-40 pale yellow 

 scales slightly keeled on the back and gradually narrowed into long slender points. 



