214: DARWINIANA. 



relatives, yet it may equal them in longevity. The 

 other relative is Glyptostrdbus, a sort of modified Tax- 

 odium, being about as much like our bald cypress as 

 one species of redwood is like the other. 



Now, species of the same type, especially when 

 few, and the type peculiar, are, in a general way, asso- 

 ciated geographically, i. e., inhabit the same country, 

 or (in a large sense) the same region. Where it is not 

 so, where near relatives are separated, there is usually 

 something to be explained. Here is an instance. 

 These four trees, sole representatives of their tribe, 

 dwell almost in three separate quarters of the world : 

 the two redwoods in California, the bald cypress in 

 Atlantic North America, its near relative, Glyptostro- 

 bus, in China. 



It was not always so. In the Tertiary period, the 

 geological botanists assure us, our own very Taxodium 

 or bald cypress, and a Glyptostrobus, exceedingly like 

 the present Chinese tree, and more than one Sequoia, 

 coexisted in a fourth quarter of the globe, viz., in 

 Europe ! This brings up the question, Is it possible 

 to bridge over these four wide intervals of space and 

 the much vaster interval of time, so as to bring these 

 extraordinarily separated relatives (into connection ? 

 The evidence which may be brought to bear upon this 

 question is various and widely scattered. I bespeak 

 your patience while I endeavor to bring together, in 

 an abstract, the most important points of it. 



Some interesting facts may come out by comparing 

 generally the botany of the three remote regions, each 

 of which is the sole home of one of these genera, i. e., 

 Sequoia in California, Taxodium in the Atlantic United 



