162 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



found himself in what is now called the Calaveras 

 Grove. The story which he brought back to camp 

 regarding the mammoth plantation seemed to his 

 comrades to out-munchhausen Miinchhausen, and 

 they would not believe it, although Dowd offered to 

 guide them to the place to see for themselves. The 

 discoverer, however, knew he was the hero of a real 

 romance, and not to be cheated of his rightful glory 

 he resorted to stratagem. One day when he and the 

 rest were hunting in company, he managed to steer 

 them without notice into the presence of the trees, 

 and the giants spoke for themselves. Their fame 

 then spread rapidly and specimens of cones and foli- 

 age were despatched to Doctors Gray and Torrey 

 in the East, for a botanical opinion. 



This material, unfortunately, was lost on the voy- 

 age around the Horn; but in the following year, 

 1853, a British botanist, William Lobb, collecting 

 plants and seeds for an English firm of nursery- 

 men, visited the Calaveras grove and secured speci- 

 mens which he forwarded to England with better 

 success; and Sequoias started from Lobb's seeds 

 are growing in Great Britain to-day. Dr. Lindley, 

 a botanist of London, after a study of Lobb's ma- 

 terial, described the tree as a new genus under the 

 name of Wellingtonia gigantea, in honor of the Iron 

 Duke whose recent death made his memory then 



