TREES AND SHRUBS 153 



climate of England, but they find the winters of 

 the north-central and the northeastern United 

 States prohibitive. 



A tree that has weathered successive ice ages 

 should not mind the winters of the present era, 

 even at the northern boundaries of the United 

 States, one might suppose. But such an infer- 

 ence misses the chief point of the Sequoia's 

 ancestral story. In fact, the giant trees are alive 

 to-day in something like their pristine form 

 because they migrated before the ice sheets and 

 finally found a place of refuge west of the Sierras 

 where they were sheltered from the northern 

 blasts and given protection by the tempered 

 breezes of the Pacific. As compared with the 

 other conifers pines, spruces, hemlocks, cedars, 

 and the rest the Sequoias are really tender 

 trees. They are hardy indeed in contrast with 

 their ancestors of still remoter geological times. 

 But they have never developed that extreme 

 hardiness that characterizes their modified and 

 stunted cousins. 



Nevertheless it has been found possible to raise 

 the Sequoia gigantea as far north as central New 

 York. But the tree does not really thrive in 

 regions so inhospitable, and the redwood is even 

 more tender. In central and south-central 

 regions of the United States, however, the giant 



