VI] REDWOOD AND MAMMOTH TREES 105 



Sequoias would appear to have been mainly in the 

 northern hemisphere, extending well within the Arctic 

 circle. It is, however, by no means improbable that 

 the ancestors of Sequoia flourished far south of the 

 equator. Reference has been made to Jurassic fossils 

 from Madagascar which have been compared with the 

 existing species, and from LoAver Tertiary beds in 

 New Zealand the late Baron Ettingshausen described 

 some cones and twigs as Sequoia novae zeelandicae 

 which bear a close resemblance to the existing type. 

 The available evidence would seem to point to a 

 northern origin of the genus, though allowance must 

 be made for erroneous conclusions based on negative 

 evidence. Further research may well extend the past 

 distribution of Sequoia in southern lands, but the 

 data to hand point to the conclusion that the Cali- 

 fornian trees represent the survivors of a type which 

 flourished in the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods 

 over a wide area in North America and in what we 

 now call the Continent of Europe. 



