700 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



and spreading from beyond the middle, rigid, ending in sharp cartilaginous points ; 

 lower surface green, rounded or keeled ; upper surface with green midrib and two 

 inconspicuous bands of stomata. 



Staminate flowers, ^ to ^ inch long, with acute or acuminate connectives. 

 Pistillate flowers with twenty-five to forty pale yellow bracts gradually narrowed 

 into long slender points. Cones ripening in the second year, ovoid-oblong, 2 to 3 

 inches long by i^ to 2 inches wide, brownish ; scales gradually thickening from the 

 base to the dilated disc, which is f to i inch broad, and often bears a reflexed spine 

 in the centre of the transverse depression. Seeds, ^ to ^ inch long, light-brown, 

 apiculate at the apex, surrounded by laterally united, often unequal wings, which are 

 broader than the body of the seed. Proliferous cones have been observed.' 



Wellingtonia produces cones freely in many parts of the British Isles, but these 

 are smaller in size as a rule than those of the wild tree and rarely contain mature 

 seed. Mr. Richards informed me that he had sown a large quantity of seed, 

 produced by a tree growing at Penrhyn on the lawn in an isolated sunny position, 

 and only obtained eight seedlings. Barnes^ raised young plants from seeds 

 produced by a tree at Bicton. At Orton Longueville, Mr. Harding ' succeeded in 

 raising six seedlings out of 100 seeds. The tree cones well at Dropmore, but has 

 seldom if ever produced fertile seed there. 



Wellingtonia differs markedly from the redwood, in not reproducing itself 

 either by suckers from the root or by coppice shoots. In its native forests, seed 

 is produced in great abundance, and numerous seedlings occur everywhere in the 

 southern part of the area of distribution of the species ; but in the northern groves 

 seedlings are said to be totally wanting. 



Varieties 



None have been noticed in the wild state. Several have appeared in cultivation 

 in Europe. 



I. Vdx. pendula. Branches bent downwards at the base, and hanging for their 

 whole length close to the stem, forming in young plants a slender pyramid and in 

 older examples a tall narrow column. This remarkable variety was obtained out of 

 the seed-bed by Lalande of Nantes in 1863, and was put upon the market in 1873 t>y 

 Paillet of Chatenay-les-Sceaux, near Paris. The best tree ^ of this kind is growing 

 at M. Allard's arboretum at Angers, in France, and when measured by Elwes in 1907 

 was 44 feet high by 3 feet in girth, but only 13 feet round the branches. At Bicton,' 

 this variety is represented by a tree which in 1902 was 33 feet high by 26 inches in 

 girth at 2 feet from the ground. At Brettargh Holt,** Kendal, the residence of Charles 

 Walker, Esq., a weeping Wellingtonia was reported to be 22 feet high in the same 

 year. Another example, aged 26 years, growing at Dalkeith Palace and reported 

 to be 19^ feet high in 1902, was figured in the Gardeners' Chronicle!' A specimen 



Carriere, Rev. Hort. 1887, p. 509, f. 103. Cf. Card. Chron. ii. 649 (1887). 



Card. Chron. 1868, p. 872. Ibid. xxix. 55 (1901). 



* Described and figured by Rehder in Moller's Deutsche Gartner Zeitung, March 22, 1902. 



'' Card. Chron. xxxi. p, 388, fig. 136, and p. 435 ; and xxxii. p. 23 (1902). 



