142 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. CONIFER. 
quarter to one half of an inch in length, about one eighth of an inch in width, obscurely keeled, and 
marked above with two narrow longitudinal bands of stomata, and glaucous and stomatiferous below, 
with slightly thickened revolute margins and conspicuous midribs; on leading shoots they are disposed 
in many ranks, frequently scale-like, more or less spreading or appressed, ovate or ovate-oblong, 
incurved at the rounded apiculate apex, thickened, rounded and stomatiferous on the lower surface, 
concave, prominently keeled and covered with stomata on the upper surface, and usually about a 
quarter of an inch long, and die and turn red-brown at least two years before falling. Such scale-like 
leaves often occur on isolated branchlets among those bearing leaves of the normal form, and frequently 
cover entire branches, especially the upper branches of large trees, or rarely all the branches of trees 
growing at high elevations... The flowers open late in the winter or in very early spring. The 
staminate flower is ovate, obtuse, about one sixteenth of an inch long, raised at maturity on a slender 
elongated stipe, and surrounded by numerous broadly ovate scales, which are acute and apiculate at the 
apex, rounded and obscurely keeled on the outer face and concave on the inner; the connectives are 
ovate, rounded or short-pointed at the apex, and denticulate. The pistillate flower is oblong, and 
composed of about twenty more or less broadly ovate acute scales tipped with elongated incurved or 
short points.” The cone is oblong, from three quarters of an inch to an inch long and half an inch 
broad, with scales which are abruptly dilated above into disks penetrated by deep narrow grooves, 
usually destitute of mucros, about a third of an inch long and an eighth of an inch wide, and furnished 
on the inner surface with numerous resin glands. Usually from three to five seeds are produced under 
each scale; they are about one sixteenth of an inch long and light brown, with wings as broad as the 
body. 
Sequoia sempervirens is distributed from the southern borders of Oregon* southward near the 
coast to Salmon Creek Canon about twelve miles south of Punta Gorda, Monterey County, California, 
rarely ranging more than twenty or thirty miles from the coast or beyond the influence of ocean fogs, 
or ascending more than three thousand feet above the sea-level. In this narrow mountain forest belt, 
which the Redwood has made the most prolific in the world,* it often forms at the north, on moist 
sandstone soil, pure forests, occupying the sides of cafons and ravines watered by abundant springs, 
and the banks of streams, the trees being separated by only a few feet, and at the south grows 
usually in small groves scattered among Pines and Firs, the Madrofia, and the Tan Bark Oak. Usually 
confined to the western slopes of the coast ranges, it is most abundant and attains its largest size north 
of Cape Mendocino; and south of the Bay of San Francisco it is comparatively rare and usually 
small, although large individual trees were once scattered throughout the entire Redwood region. 
Sequoia sempervirens is the most valuable timber-tree of the forests of Pacific North America. 
The wood is light and soft, brittle and not very strong; it is close-grained, easily split and worked, 
very durable in contact with the soil, and susceptible of receiving a good polish.’ It is clear light red, 
with thin nearly white sapwood, and contains thin conspicuous dark-colored bands of small summer- 
cells and numerous obscure medullary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.4208, 
a cubic foot weighing 26.22 pounds. Largely manufactured into lumber, it is the most common and 
most valuable building material produced in the Pacific states, and in California is used almost 
exclusively for shingles, fence-posts, telegraph-poles, railway-ties, wine butts, tanning and water tanks, 
and coffins. It is largely exported to Australia, the Pacific islands and China, and is now frequently 
used in building in the states east of the Rocky Mountains, and is occasionally exported to Europe, 
1 Eastwood, Proc. Cal. Acad. ser. 2, v. 170, t. 15-17 (Heteromor- Chetco River, about four miles from its mouth. The Redwood 
phic Organs of Sequoia sempervirens). also grows in Oregon on the Winchuck River, just within the bor- 
* Eastwood, 1. c. 173, t. 18.— Masters, Gard. Chron. ser. 3, xix. ders of the state. 
556, f. 86. * Alvord, Garden and Forest, v. 237 (The Forests of California). 
° What is probably the most northern Redwood grove stands in 5 Frémont, Geographical Memoir upon Upper California, 36, 37 
Oregon, about eight miles north of the California state line on the (Senate Doc. Miscellaneous, No. 148, 30th Congress U.S. 1st Sess.). 
