308 SELECT PLANTS FOR INDUSTRIAL CULTURE 



montana (Eckl. and Zeyh.), a closely allied plant, yields like- 

 wise an edible root ; and so it is with a few other species of 

 the section Anesorrhiza. 



Selinum Monnieri, Linne. 



From East Asia now extending to South Europe, preferring 

 moist places. An annual herb, praised by the Chinese as 

 valuable for medicinal purposes. 



Sequoia sempervirens, Endlicher.* (Taxodium sempervirens, 

 Lambert.) 



Ked Wood or Bastard Cedar of North- West America, chiefly 

 California. A splendid tree, 360 feet high, occasionally with 

 a diameter of the stem of 55 feet. The wood is reddish, 

 close-veined, easily split, very durable, but light and brittle. 

 The timber of mission buildings one hundred years old is still 

 quite sound. One of the most colossal trees of the globe. Its 

 growth is about 32 feet in sixteen years. Often found 

 on metamorphic sandstone. Dr. Gibbons writes that this 

 tree forms immense forests along the coast range for a 

 distance of about 200 miles in a belt 20 miles wide. The soft, 

 straight-grained, durable wood is suitable for external as well 

 as internal finish. It constitutes almost the sole material for 

 weather-boarding along the Californian coast ; and for fence 

 posts, foundations of buildings, and railway sleepers, it is almost 

 the only material used. Dr. Gibbons records as the stoutest 

 stem some of 33 feet diameter at 3 feet from the ground. 



Sequoia Wellingtonia, Seemann.* (WelUngtoniagigantea ) 'Lmdi\.Qy f 

 Sequoia gigantea } Torrey, not Endl.) 



Mammoth Tree. California, up to 8,000 feet above the sea. 

 This, the biggest of all trees, attains a stem of 320 feet in 

 length and 112 feet in circumference, the oldest trees being 

 estimated at 1,100 years. The total height of a tree has been 

 recorded as occasionally 450 feet, but such heights have never 

 been confirmed by actual clinometric measurements of trees 

 existing now. A stem broken at 300 feet had yet a diameter 

 of 18 feet. The wood is soft and white when felled; 

 afterwards it turns red. It is very durable. Traditional ac- 

 counts seem to have overrated the height of the Mammoth 

 Tree. In the Calaveras grove two of the largest trees, which 

 may have been the tallest of all, were destroyed ; the two 

 highest now existing there are respectively 325 and 319 

 feet high, with a circumference of 45 and 40 feet at 6 

 feet from the ground. At the Mariposa grove the highest 



