SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 231 



associates of the present redwoods. But all the rest 

 are in the southern hemisphere, two at the southern 

 extremity of the Andes, two in the South-Sea Islands. 

 It is only by bold and far-reaching suppositions that 

 they can be geographically associated. 



The genealogy of the Torreyas is still wholly ob- 

 scure ; yet it is not unlikely that the yew-like trees, 

 named Taxites, which flourished with the Sequoias in 

 the tertiary arctic forests, are the remote ancestors of 

 the three species of Torreya, now severally in Florida, 

 in California, and in Japan. 



As to the pines and firs, these were more numer- 

 ously associated with the ancient Sequoias of the 

 polar forests than with their present representatives, 

 but in different species, apparently more like those 

 of Eastern than of Western North America. They 

 must have encircled the polar zone then, as they en- 

 circle the present temperate zone now. 



I must refrain from all enumeration of the angio- 

 spermous or ordinary deciduous trees and shrubs, 

 which are now known, by their fossil remains, to 

 have flourished throughout the polar regions when 

 Greenland better deserved its name and enjoyed the 

 present climate of New England and New Jersey. 

 Then Greenland and the rest of the north abounded 

 with oaks, representing the several groups of species 

 which now inhabit both our Eastern and "Western for- 

 est districts ; several poplars, one very like our balsam 

 poplar or balm-of-Gilead tree; more beeches than 

 there are now, a hornbeam, and a hop-hombeam, 

 some birches, a persimmon, and a planer-tree, near 

 representatives of those of the Old World, at least of 



