in Extra-Tropical Countries. 355 



Selinum Monnieri, Linn<$. 



Eastern- Asia, preferring moist places. An annual herb, praised by 

 the Chinese as valuable for medicinal purposes. 



Sequoia sempervirens, Eiidlicher.* (Taxodium sempervirens, Lambert.) 



Red Wood or Bastard-Cedar of North- Western America, chiefly 

 California. One of the most colossal trees of the globe, exceptionally 

 becoming 360 feet high, occasionally with a stem-diameter of 55 feet- 

 Likes humidity of soil, particularly in its early youth (Prof. Meehan)- 

 The wood is reddish, soft, easily split, very durable, but light and 

 brittle. The timber of mission-buildings one hundred years old are 

 still quite sound. The growth of this tree is about 32 feet in sixteen 

 years. The tree is often found on metamorphic sandstone. It 

 luxuriates in the cool dampness of sea-fogs. Shinn describes these 

 Sequoias as rugged shafts, rising like huge monolithic columns, 

 crowned with downward curving branches of shining green. Dr, 

 Gibbons writes, that this tree forms forests along the coast-range for 

 a distance of about 200 miles in a belt 20 miles wide. The 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 there. Is also susceptible of a 

 splendid polish for furniture; is largely sawn into boards and shingles, 

 furnishing in California the cheapest lumber. Stem bare for 100 feet 

 or more; when cut, sending suckers from the root for renovation. 

 Dr. Gibbons records as the stoutest stems some of 33 feet diameter at 

 3 feet from the ground. The foliage of this Sequoia is much like 

 that of a Fir or Abies, while the foliage of the following species is 

 more resembling that of a Spruce or Picea. 



Sequoia Wellingtonia, Seemann.* ( Wellingtonia gigantea, Lindley; Sequoia 

 gigantea, Decaisne not Endlicher.) 



Mammoth-tree. California, up to 8,000 feet above the sea. This, 

 the biggest of all trees, attains a stem-length of 320 feet and a cir- 

 cumference of 112 feet, the age of the oldest trees being estimated at 

 1,100 years. The total height of a tree has been recorded as occa- 

 sionally 450 feet, but such heights have never been confirmed by 

 actual clinometric measurements of trees existing now. A stem 

 broken at about 300 feet had yet a diameter of 18 feet. The wood is 

 soft and white when felled; afterwards it turns red; it is very dur- 

 able. Traditional accounts seem to have overrated the height of the 

 Mammoth-tree. In the Calveras-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 feet and 40 feet at 6 feet from the 

 ground. At the Mariposa-grove the highest really measured trees 

 are 272, 270 and 260 feet high; but one of these has the enormous 

 circumference of 67 feet at 6 feet from the ground, while another, the 

 height of which is not recorded, is 93 feet in girth at the ground, and 



