12] VEGETATIONAL TYPES OF TEMPERATE LANDS 379 



York, transl. edition, pp. xxxi -j- 436, 1950) and those published in Die 

 Vegetation der Erde — such as J. W. Harshberger's Phytogeographic Survey 

 of North America (Engelmann, Leipzig, pp. Ixiii -f 790 and map, 191 1) 

 and L. Cockayne's The Vegetation of New Zealand, second edition 

 (Engehnann, Leipzig, pp. xxvii -r- 456 and additional illustrations, 1928). 

 As examples of what may with advantage be done in elucidating a single 

 if generalized type of vegetation in one important region, we may cite 

 E. L. Braun's Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America (Blakiston, 

 Philadelphia & Toronto, pp. xiv -f 596 and map, 1950) and J. E. Weaver's 

 North American Prairie (Johnsen, Lincoln, Nebr., pp. xi -)- 348, 1954), 

 and, as a study of a particular ecological aspect wherever it may crop up, 

 V. J. Chapman's Salt Marshes and Salt Deserts of the World (I^eonard 

 Hill, London, pp. xvi + 352 + index, in press). 



Whereas the world's longest plants are probably some lianes of the 

 tropical rain forest which are reputed to exceed 655 feet (200 metres, cf. 

 p. 431) in length (and hence not to be rivalled by the giant Pacific Kelp 

 Macrocystis pyrifera, at least according to recent accounts — cf. p. 535), it 

 is in the temperate regions that there grow what appear to be the world's 

 tallest plants — see p. 63. For this proud title there is considerable 

 doubt about the validity of claims of the past and some even about con- 

 tentions of the present, but the oft-quoted and apparently well authenti- 

 cated 364 feet cited on p. 63 as that of the tallest living Coastal Redwood 

 no longer stands, as the tree has lost its top and is now only 346 feet high. 

 News of this unfortunate loss has arrived as the present volume is in the 

 press, and, at the same time, from Dr. Lincoln Constance, of the Uni- 

 versity of California at Berkeley, details of another tree of Sequoia se?nper- 

 virens, growing in the Bull Creek Flat area, that is reported to be 368-7 

 feet high, though he stresses that this measurement has not been finally 

 authenticated. Whereas even this height was apparently exceeded by 

 some Eucalypts growing is southeastern Australia in fairly recent times, 

 where heights of up to 500 feet are widely cited and one of 375 feet for a 

 specimen of Eucalyptus regnans seems to be well accepted (cf. A. R. 

 Penfold and J. L. Willis's Eucalyptus : Botany, Cultivation, and Utiliza- 

 tion, Leonard Hill, London, in press, and J. L. Willis in Hit.), there do 

 not appear to be among standing trees any very close rivals of the tallest 

 Sequoia sempervirens. Moreover, as the tallest known living Eucalypt 

 (growing in Tasmania, and also of the so-called ' Mountain-ash ', E. 

 regnans) was only 322 feet high in June, 1956, it is likely to be a good many 

 years before the Australians can again rival their American cousins in 

 the possession of the world's tallest living tree. 



