SEQUOIA 



Sequoia, Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 197 (1847); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. PI. iii. 429 (1880); Masters, 

 Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot) xxx. 22 (1892). 



Wellingtonia, Lindley, Gard. Chron. 1853, p. 823. 



IVashingtonia, Winslow, Calif. Farmer, 1854, ex Hooker, Kew Journ. vii. 29 (1855). 

 Gigantabies, Nelson {Senilis), Finacece, 77 (1886). 

 Athrotaxis, Baillon, Hist. Ft. xii. 39 (1892). 

 Steinhauera, Kuntze, Lexic. Gen. Fhan. 533 (1904). 



Tall evergreen trees, belonging to the tribe Taxodineae of the order Coniferae. 

 Bark thick, of two layers, the outer thick, spongy and fibrous, the inner thin, close, 

 and firm. Branches short and stout ; lateral branchlets slender, terete, and 

 deciduous. Buds and leaves dififerent in the two species, the leaves having an 

 undivided fibro-vascular bundle, with a single resin canal beneath it. 



Flowers monoecious, solitary, minute, appearing in early spring from buds 

 formed in the previous autumn. Male flowers terminal or in the axils of the upper- 

 most leaves, surrounded at the base by imbricated, ovate, acute, apiculate, involucral 

 bracts ; stamens numerous, spirally arranged on an axis ; filaments short, dilated 

 into ovate incurved sub-peltate connectives, which bear on their inner surface two 

 to five (usually three) pendulous globose two-valved anther-cells, opening below on 

 the back ; pollen simple. Female flowers terminal, the leaves gradually passing 

 into the bracts, which are numerous, spirally imbricated, ovate, keeled on the back, 

 acuminate with either long or short points, and adnate to short thick rounded 

 ovuliferous scales which bear five to seven ovules, at first erect, ultimately becoming 

 inverted. 



Cones pendulous, persistent after the fall of the seeds. Scales, formed by the 

 enlargement of the united bracts and ovuliferous scales of the flowers, woody, with 

 deciduous resin-glands, spirally arranged, wedge-shaped at the base, widening at 

 the apex into oblong wrinkled discs, showing a transverse median depression, some- 

 times tipped by a small spine. Seeds, 5 to 7 under each scale, pendulous, oblong- 

 ovate, compressed, with two lateral wings. Seedlings with four to six cotyledons ; 

 primary leaves linear-lanceolate, short-pointed, thin, spreading. 



Several fossil species of Sequoia are known, occurring earliest in the Cretaceous 

 period in the holarctic region, becoming very widely spread over Europe, Northern 

 Asia, and North America in Tertiary times. Two living species, inhabiting Cali- 

 fornia, are distinguished. 



I. Sequoia semperuirens , Endlicher. Coast range of California, and crossing 



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