2l6 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



graphs will prove more eloquent than my words. Suffice it to say 

 that there are many thousands of these trees in this park, of all 

 ages, from the seedlings, such as you see here in England, to the 

 veterans, many of whom exceed 4000 years in age, no feet in 

 girth, 320 feet in height, and have bark 2 feet thick. Dr 

 Muir, the botanist and explorer, describes one whose rings he 

 counted, and found that at the beginning of the Christian era it 

 was no less than 27 feet in diameter. It would appear that 

 were it not for lightning or corrosion by the water of the ground 

 at the base, these trees would live for all time. A dead 

 standing Sequoia is a thing unknown ; and, indeed, when the 

 tree has fallen, its wood seems to be quite imperishable. Its sap 

 is poisonous to all forms of insect and fungus life. 



I brought some boards away with me, split from the surface 

 immediately below the bark of a tree which fell 1000 years ago; 

 this had been ascertained by felling and counting the rings of a 

 younger Sequoia which grew astride of the fallen trunk. It is 

 an impressive thing to see these giants, with their feathery 

 green tops, and realise that they are the oldest living things in 

 the world. Sequoia Welliiigtonia covers a much smaller area 

 than its only surviving kinsman Sequoia semperviretis. It only 

 grows in scattered groves on the western flanks of the Sierra 

 Nevadas at elevations of 5000 to 8500 feet, and its northern 

 and southern limits cannot be more than 150 miles apart. 

 Sequoia sempervirens, restricted to the Coast ranges, extends 

 north just across the Oregon Boundary and south to Monterey 

 County, California, a distance of 450 miles. The finest 

 Weilingtonia we saw was named the " General Sherman," and I 

 photographed it fairly successfully. There are said to be 

 25,000 of them in the park. Douglas fir is conspicuously 

 absent from this district. In the more open country round 

 Moro Rock, we saw very beautiful Finns monticola mingling 

 with the sugar and yellow pines. 



The prevailing brush in the forest is Quercus chrysolepis, the 

 " Gold-cup Evergreen Oak," in stunted form ; also a charming 

 little brown-barked shrub with blossoms like a raspberry's and 

 fern-like leaves — Chamcebatiafoliolosa — not more than 2 feet high. 

 I must mention, too, the most curious of all flowers of that 

 country — the snow plant — Sarcodes sanguinea — a crimson 

 succulent thing which forces its head of bell-shaped flowers 

 through the pine needles soon after the snow melts. The 



