GIGANTIC TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 113 
seen in the Fir and Hemlock ; or sometimes they are 
placed in tufts at intervals of one or two inches apart, 
as in the Larch, &c. Often 2, 3, 4, or 5 of these leaves 
are clustered together in a bunch, and wrapped around 
at the base with a sheath. With the fruit of these 
trees most persons are familiar. Some of the cones 
are particularly beautiful, especially those of the 
Cedar of Lebanon and the Norway Fir. 
There are perhaps few trees which attain to more 
gigantic proportions than some of the varieties be- 
longing to this class. The measurements of some 
recently discovered in California would be considered 
almost fabulous, were not the accounts substantiated 
by the most undoubted evidence. 
A specimen of the Gigantic Wellingtonia, which 
was recently felled, measured about 300 feet in length, 
and 60 feet in circumference near the base; and the 
following extract of a letter, received from Dr. Wins- 
low of California, gives dimensions still more extra- 
ordinary. ‘There are more than a hundred of these 
trees which may be considered as having reached the 
extreme limits of growth which the species can at- 
tain. One of our countrymen measured one, of which 
the trunk immediately above the root was 94 feet in 
circumference. Another which had fallen from old 
age, or had been uprooted by a tempest, was lying 
near it, of which the length from the roots to the top 
of the branches was 450 feet. A great portion of 
this monster still exists, and, according to Dr. Lap- 
bam, the proprietor of the locality, at 350 feet from 
the roots the trunk measured 10 feet in diameter. 
LO* H 
