TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



on the upper surface, usually about \' long; dying and turning reddish brown at least 

 two years before falling. Flowers opening in December or January; male oblong, obtuse; 

 female with about 20 broadly ovate acute scales tipped with elongated and incurved or 

 short points. Fruit ripening in October, oblong, f '-!' long, ' broad, its scales gradually 



enlarged from slender 

 stipes abruptly dilat- 

 ed above into disks 

 penetrated by deep 

 narrow grooves, and 

 usually without tips; 

 seeds about ^V long, 

 light brown, with 

 wings as broad as 

 their body. 



A tree, from 200- 

 340 high, with a 

 slightly tapering and 

 irregularly lobed 

 trunk usually free of 

 branches for 75- 

 100, usually 10-15, 

 rarely 28 in diame- 

 ter at the much but- 

 tressed base, slender 



branches, clothed with branchlets spreading in 2 ranks and forming while the tree is young 

 an open narrow pyramid, on old trees becoming stout and horizontal, and forming a nar- 

 row rather compact and very irregular head remarkably small in proportion to the height 

 and size of the trunk, and slender leading branchlets covered at the end of three or four 

 years after the leaves fall with cinnamon-brown scaly bark ; when cut producing from the 

 stump numerous vigorous long-lived shoots. Buds with numerous loosely imbricated 

 ovate acute scales persistent on the base of the branchlet. Bark 6'-12' thick, divided into 

 rounded ridges and separated on the surface into long narrow dark brown fibrous scales 

 often broken transversely and in falling disclosing the bright cinnamon-red inner bark. 

 Wood light, soft, not strong, close-grained, easily split and worked, very durable in con- 

 tact with the soil, clear light red; largely manufactured into lumber and used for shingles, 

 fence-posts, railway-ties, wine-butts, and in buildings. 



Distribution. Valley of the Chetco River, Oregon, 8 miles north of the California state 

 line, southward near the coast to Monterey County, California; rarely found more than 

 twenty or thirty miles from the coast, or beyond the influence of the ocean fogs, or over 

 3000 above the sea-level; often forming in northern California pure forests occupying the 

 sides of ravines and the banks of streams; southward growing usually in small groves scat- 

 tered among other trees; most abundant and of its largest size north of Cape Mendocino. 

 Often cultivated as an ornamental tree in the temperate countries of Europe, and occa- 

 sionally in the southeastern United States. 



Fig. 62 



2. Sequoia gigantea Decne. Big Tree. 



Sequoia Wellingtonia Seem. 



Leaves ovate and acuminate, or lanceolate, rounded and thickened on the lower surface, 

 concave on the upper surface, marked by bands of stomata on both sides of the obscure 

 midrib, rigid, sharp-pointed, decurrent below, spreading or closely appressed above the 

 middle, f'-|' or on leading shoots \' long. Flowers opening in late winter and early 

 spring; male in great profusion over the whole tree, oblong-ovoid, with ovate acute or acumi- 

 nate connectives; female with 25-40 pale yellow scales slightly keeled on the back and grad- 



