SPERMATOPHYTA 



73 



pines, cedars, hemlocks, etc. Recorded from the time of the 

 Comanchean. 



(c) Taxodice. — Includes (i) Voltzia from the Upper Permian 

 and Triassic. To this tribe likewise belongs (2) Sequoia 

 (Figs. 24, 25). The genus Sequoia is now represented only by 

 two species, — S. sempervirens, the redwood, and S. gigan- 

 tea, the big tree, — living in restricted areas in California and 

 southern Oregon. These trees are unique in the world in their 



Fig. 26, A. — Sketch map showing the known distribution of the bald cypress 

 (Taxodium). Tertiarj- distribution shaded; Pleistocene occurrences north of its 

 present limits, in dots; present distribution black. (From Berry.) 



size, age, and scarcity. The trunk often attains a height of 

 over three hundred feet and a diameter of over thirty feet. Like 

 Araucaria, Ginkgo, etc., Sequoia, as at present represented, is 

 merely the lonely survivor of a once widely distributed group. 

 Though not known conclusively from the Jurassic, its twigs, 

 cones, and seeds are abundant in the Comanchean of North 

 America from Virginia-Texas-California, north to Greenland, 



