278 SEQUOIA WELLINGTONS. 



Andrew Murray, recognising the import of Seemann's announcement 

 adopted his name for the " Big Tree " in Lawson's " Pinetum 

 Britannicum " ; it is also adopted by Professor Sargent in his monu- 

 mental work "The Silva of North America.''' 



The observation in page 272 on the restricted habitat of Sequoia 

 sempervirens and its significance in respect of the stability of the 

 species is applicable to & WelUnytonia with still greater force so far 

 as natural agencies are concerned. The Wellingtonia covers a much 

 smaller area than the Redwood, and in numbers is still infinitely behind 

 it ; but although seedlings are well nigh absent from the northern groves, 

 they are numerous in the southern forest, and thus far the perpetuation 

 of the species is assured. And whilst the Redwoods are being decimated 

 by lumber operations at an almost incredible pace, the destruction of 

 the Wellingtonias by this agency is proceeding at a much slower rate, 

 and will probably cease altogether in consequence of the greater part 

 of the land on which the trees stand having been taken over by the 

 United States Government which has stretched forth a protecting 

 hand over the trees, and these therefore will be preserved so long as 

 the law affecting them remains in force. The timber of the Wellingtonia 

 is inferior to that of the Redwood; it is light, soft and coarse-grained, 

 not strong, but very durable in contact with the soil; it is used 

 locally for fencing and other out-of-door carpentry.* 



The immense size of the Wellingtonias naturally led to conjectures 

 as to the ages of some of the " full-grown giants," but which in the 

 first instances were enormously in excess of the reality. The earliest 

 approximation to the truth was obtained by Professor "Whitney, the 

 State Geologist of California, by counting the rings of a felled tree 

 in the Calaveras Grove. This tree was 24 feet in diameter exclusive 

 of the bark, and contained 1,255 annual rings at a section of the 

 trunk made 30 feet from the base. "There was a small cavity in the 

 centre of the tree which prevented an accurate fixing of the age ; 

 but making due allowance for that and for the time it required to 

 grow to the height at which the count was made, it will be safe to 

 say that this particular tree which was as large as any standing in 

 the grove was, in round numbers, thirteen hundred years old." The 

 annual rings of other trees counted by different persons gave much higher 

 results, but these were probably exceptional instances. Quite recently 

 a full-sized tree was felled in Tresno County, California, and a section 

 of its trunk set up in the Jesup collection of American woods in the 

 Museum of Natural History at New York, and another section from 

 the same tree, next above the Jesup section, was secured for the 

 British Museum of Natural History at South Kensington, and is set 

 up in the Central Hall; the annual rings of this section have been 

 carefully counted and found to number 1,335. This particular tree 

 was 62 feet in girth at eight feet from the ground, 300 feet high and 

 without branches for 200 feet of its height. From these and other 

 authentic data, it is not unsafe to infer that none of the existing 

 AVellingtonias ante-date the Christian era, or that with very few 

 exceptions, the oldest of them reach within five hundred years of that 

 epoch, and whose ages therefore do not much exceed that of the 

 oldest Yews in Great Britain. 



* Silva of North America, X 147. 



