GIGANTIC TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 113 



seen in the Fir and Hemlock ; or sometimes they are 

 placed in tufts at intervals of one or two inches apart, 

 as in the Larch, &c. Often 2, 3, 4, or 5 of these leaves 

 are clustered together in a bunch, and wrapped around 

 at the base with a sheath. With the fruit of these 

 trees most persons are familiar. Some of the cones 

 are particularly beautiful, especially those of the 

 Cedar of Lebanon and the Norway Fir. 



There are perhaps few trees which attain to more 

 gigantic proportions than some of the varieties be- 

 longing to this class. The measurements of some 

 recently discovered in California would be considered 

 almost fabulous, were not the accounts substantiated 

 by the most undoubted evidence. 



A specimen of the Gigantic Wellingtonia, which 

 was recently felled, measured about 300 feet in length, 

 and 60 feet in circumference near the base ; and the 

 following extract of a letter, received from Dr. Wins- 

 low of California, gives dimensions still more extra- 

 ordinary. " There are more than a hundred of these 

 trees which may be considered as having reached the 

 extreme limits of growth which the species can at- 

 tain. One of our countrymen measured one, of which 

 the trunk immediately above the root was 94 feet in 

 circumference. Another which had fallen from old 

 age, or had been uprooted by a tempest, was lying 

 near it, of which the length from the roots to the top 

 of the branches was 450 feet. A great portion of 

 this monster still exists, and, according to Dr. Lap- 

 ham, the proprietor of the locality, at 350 feet from 

 the roots the trunk measured 10 feet in diameter. 

 10* H 



