ARBORICULTURE 



A MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Published in the Interest of the 

 International Society of Arboriculture. 



The Sequoia Sempervirens, or Coast Redwood of California. 



Scientists tell us that in the Pliocene 

 age there were nearly twenty species of 

 Sequoia, of world-wide distribution. 



They grew all over Northern Europe, 

 and in North America from the latitude 

 of Nebraska and Dakota to Greenland 

 and Alaska. Some of these closely re- 

 sembled our two surviving species. 



.V mild climate and rich soil encour- 

 aged the growth of these magnificent for- 

 ests, and beneath their shade flourisherl 

 many plants and animals now extinct. 



Then came that unexjilained change of 

 climate known as the Ice Age, and im- 

 mense glaciers extended slowly down 

 from the north over this fertile region, 

 planing down hills, filling up valleys, and 

 grinding off the peaks and ridges of 

 mountains. 



When it passed away, as in the slow 

 eons of time all things pass, many forms 

 of life had perished utterly, and failed 

 to reappear. 



Of the Sequoia, only two species sur- 

 vived, and these were both in California, 

 the S. gigantea being restricted to the 

 western slopes of the Sierra Nevada 

 Mountains, and the S. sempervirens to 

 the Coast Range, from the bay of 

 Monterey to the Oregon line. 



It is of the latter, the redwood proper, 

 that this paper treats. 



They are magnificent specimens of the 

 tree world, their fiuted columns rising 



185 



into the air a height of from two to three 

 hundred feet and measuring from thirty 

 to sixty feet in circumference a little 

 above the ground. 



For a third or more of the height, their 

 trunks are clear of branches ; then the 

 boughs covered with the evergreen 

 foliage stretch out and mingle with each 

 other, forming a roof of verdure. The 

 fibrous bark is of a cinnamon brown 

 color, several inches thick. The wood is 

 also of a rich brownish red ; in quality 

 light but firm, free and straight grained, 

 quite durable and slow to burn. The 

 tree is tenacious of life, the stumps even 

 of the oldest trunks long retaining their 

 vitality at the circumference and sprout- 

 ing into a circle of fresh young shoots. 

 It was on this account that the name 

 Sempervirens — ever strong — was given 

 to it. 



Scientists differ as to the age of the 

 largest trees, but the most conservative 

 estimates place it at two thousand years. 



When the Anglo-Saxon ])ioneer first 

 penetrated into the Coast Range Moun- 

 tains, he saw around him vast stretches 

 of forest verdure, a wilderness ocean. 

 Along the crests, down the ridges, on all 

 the slopes and in the canyons stood the 

 shaggy growth of centuries. 



Redwoods rose in stately ranks, and 

 around them, reaching to their lower 

 branches, grew other coniferous trees, 



