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an America as Washingtonia californica, was discovered and intro- 
-duced by Mr. Lobb. Some of you may remember that it caused 
no smal! sensation. It is the largest of Conifers, and one of the 
largest of trees; all things considered, the largest. There grow 
on Mount Etna some enormous chestnut trees, some of them said 
to measure a hundred and eighty feet round. Such size of trunk 
is altogether exceptional, but the mammoth tree—the king of the 
giant trees of California—has a diameter of as much as thirty 
or forty feet, and a height of from two hundred and fifty feet to 
four hundred feet. Try to grasp these huge dimensions. The 
tallest trees in Kurope reach about one hundred and eighty feet, 
and the tallest in England are not much over one hundred and 
“twenty-five feet. The mammoth tree in the British Islands does 
not tower above its brethren, for ii rarely exceeds eighty feet in 
height. The leaves of this great tree are small, and the cones are 
only about two incheslong. Not far behind the “ gigantea’’ comes 
its brother, Sequoia sempervirens, the Redwood, also a native of 
California, anda tree of great value. For majestic growth and 
interesting association, the Cedar of Lebanon has long been cele- 
brated. It was always highly esteemed, and, even now, the Arab 
eonsiders it possessed of consciousness, andas being a divinity in 
the form of a tree. From the mountain forests of Northern India 
comes the picturesque Deodar or Himalayan cedar, considered a 
variety of the Lebanon cedar. This tree now adorns many a 
British pleasure ground, and isa great favourite in Hngland. It 
weaches a height of about seventy feet, and, in its native soil, as 
much as two hundred feet, with a diameter of eight or nine feet. 
‘The word “‘ Deodara’’ means ‘*‘ Tree of God,”’ or ‘‘ Divine Tree.” 
“The Thuyas, or Thujas, are well known in England as arborvites. 
The names they bear in Japan and China have the same meaning 
-as the Latin, namely, ‘‘ Tree of life.’”’ There is a Cypress so well 
known that gardeners often call it by its specific name—*‘ Lawson- 
jana.” It is a handsome fellow in Britain, but what can be said of 
it as it luxuriates in its native Californian soil, reaching a height of 
over two hundred feet, with a diameter of ten or twelve feet. A 
remarkable Chinese tree, with an odd name, is widely planted in 
‘Britain. It is the Maiden-hair tree (so called from the shape of its 
deciduous leaves), or Ginkgo biloba, or Salisburia adiantifolia. The 
‘word Ginkgo” means full of leafless buds in winter. This 
remarkable tree, geologists tell us, is a survival from very remote 
‘times, and it cannot be distinguished from fossil specimens from 
old strata. The same indeed may be said of some other species 
-which must have existed in the soil of our own land, such as it 
then was, ages and agesago. There is a New Zealander, called 
the Kauri or Cowrie pine, a great ornament to the forests. It 
