VII 



THE SEQUOIA AND ITS ADVENTURES IN 

 SEARCH OF A NAME 



LYING on my desk are two little cones, which 

 I like to show my guests as examples of the 

 old adage that the best goods often come in the 

 smallest packages. One is the size of a thimble, the 

 other little larger than a pigeon's egg, and they are 

 the seed cradles of those monarchs among trees, the 

 two species of Sequoia. It is a unique feature of 

 the California forests that in them this remarkable 

 tree genus, which once covered large areas not only 

 of America but of the world at large, is making its 

 last stand. Fossil remains of former geologic ages 

 show that trees of this tribe formed forests that 

 girdled the earth north of the Arctic Circle and ex- 

 tended down into Europe; and it has been thought 

 that the remarkable petrified forests of Arizona 

 were largely made up of a species of Sequoia. At 

 the present day two vigorous species are found in 

 California and none anywhere else, if we except a 

 small area at the northern border where one spills 

 over for a few miles into Oregon. 



