CHAPTER VI 



THE REDWOOD AND MAMMOTH TREES 

 OF CALIFORNIA 



'Your sense is sealed, or you should hear them tell 

 The tale of their dim life, with all 

 Its compost of experience ' W. E. Henley. 



Since their introduction into England about the 

 middle of the nineteenth century, the two Californian 

 species Sequoia sempervirens (the Redwood) and 

 Sequoia gigantea (the Mammoth tree) have become 

 familiar as cultivated trees. The name Sequoia, 

 said to be taken from Sequoiah, the inventor of the 

 Cherokee alphabet, was instituted in 1847, while the 

 name Wellingtonia, often used in horticulture though 

 discarded by botanists in favour of the older designa- 

 tion Sequoia, was proposed in 1853. Both species 

 are now confined to a comparatively small area in 

 California : their restricted geographical range, con- 

 sidered as an isolated fact, might be regarded as a 

 sign of recent origin. The records of the rocks, 

 however, afford ample proof that rarity in this as in 



