SEQUOIA SEMPERVIRENS 199 



branchlets. Looking at them from these points of 

 view, they seem to bear a nearer relationship with 

 some other members of their band. 



The Cr^^Dtomerias are much in the same way of 

 habit ; the more elderh' leaves, on the more elderly 

 branches, seem to keep in a closer touch of general 

 appearance with the younger generation than they 

 do in the case of the Sequoias. They seem to assert 

 themselves more successfully in competition with 

 the rising sun of the latest production of leaf foliage, 

 and to hold their own a little better among the 

 younger upstarts. They also, which is rather an 

 unusual trait in this clan, bear a certain outward 

 resemblance to the Athrotaxis. Of the remainder 

 of the Taxodineae the differences of appearance are 

 still more pronounced. There is the swamp-loving 

 Deciduous Cypress of deciduous habits, and the 

 like-nothing-on-earth Sciadopitys Verticillata, the 

 Umbrella Tree of Japan. This completes our list of 

 this menagerie group, to which we will refer separ- 

 ately. 



Sequoia Sempervirens (Taxodixe.e). — 



Give me of your boughs, O Cedar, 

 Of your strong and pliant branches 

 My canoe to make more steady, 

 Make more strong and firm beneath me. 



Longfellow. 



This is how Longfellow, in defiance of all decorum 

 in the rules of botanical nomenclature, describes the 

 finishing touches that Hiawatha contemplated putting 

 on to the construction of his Birch-bark (Betula 

 Papyrifera) canoe. Whether it was any hero-worship 

 consequence of a great national poet's utterance we 

 cannot say, but the fact remains that to this day 

 what books of all nations call Sequoias men of 



