270 



SEQUOIA SEMPERVIRENS. 



direction from the Hebrides to the Steppe of Kirghiz. During the 

 Glacial epoch it is surmised that the genus was well-nigh exterminated, 

 and was preserved only in the two isolated regions in which it still 

 survives. The fossil remains consist chiefly of cones which are sometimes 

 attached to their branches, and of foliation which connects the fossil 

 forms quite naturally with the existing species. 



The genus commemorates Sequoyah, a Cherokee Indian of mixed 

 blood, better known by his English name of George Guess, who is 



supposed to have been 

 born about the year 

 1770. He first became 

 known as a small 

 farmer in the Cherokee 

 country of Georgia, and 

 as a skilful silversmith, 

 and afterwards by his 

 invention of an alphabet 

 and a written language 

 for his tribe, which 

 was published in 1826. 

 This alphabet consists 

 of eighty-five characters, 

 each representing a 

 single sound, and was 

 used in printing the 

 "Cherokee Phoenix," a 

 journal devoted to the interests of the Cherokee nation, and also of a 

 part of the New Testament. Compelled to move with his tribe into the 

 Indian territory beyond the Mississippi, he died at San Fernando, in 

 northern Mexico, in 1843. His remarkable alphabet is destined to 

 pass away with his nation, but his name will be for ages kept in 

 memory by the most stupendous productions of the Vegetable Kingdom. 



Fig. 82. Sequoui Wcttingtonia. 1, Staminate flower somewhat 

 advanced. 2, Stamen attached to axis. 3. The same, dorsal 4, 

 ventral view ; A, connective ; B, three anther cells ; c, filament. 

 5, Pollen grains. (5, A pollen grain as seen when placed in water ; 

 . a, the empty extine of the bursted pollen grain ; b, the swollen 

 contents of the same. 1, Nat. size ; 2, 3 and 4 magnified five diame- 

 ters ; 5 and (5, 240 diameters. 



Sequoia sempervirens. 



A gigantic tree with a trunk towering to a height that varies from 

 180 to 250 or more feet in the individual trees, and with a diameter 

 near the base of from 12 to 18 or more feet, often free of brandies 

 for 75 to 100 or more feet of its height.* Bark fibrous, spongy in 

 texture and of a reddish brown colour, 6 12 inches thick, divided 

 into rounded ridges 23 feet wide.f Primary branches close set, the 

 lowermost (as seen in the oldest trees in Great Britain) decumbent, 

 those above horizontal, the uppermost slightly ascending ; branchlets 

 distichous, alternate or opposite. Buds small, globose-cylindric, covered 

 with green leaf-like scales that are for the most part persistent at the 

 base of the developed shoot, and change to orange-brown with; age. 

 Leaves Yew-like, persistent three four years, sub-distichous and 

 alternate, usually longer in the middle of the shoot than at the 



* Individual trees have been measured whose heights exceeded 300 feet, and whose 

 diameter at live feet from the ground was found to be from 18 to 20 feet. One on Eel 

 River measured in 1896 was 340 feet high. Garden and Forest, X. 292. 

 M t The bark of the Redwood contains no resin, whence the fires that frequently bum up 

 the undergrowth of the Sequoia forests have no effect on the standing trunks. 



