APPENDIX. 109 



one to change a name at will. However, not feeling sure 

 of his ground in ignoring Lambert's name, lower down on 

 the page he wrote the proper binomial Sequoia semper- 

 virens thus fixing the full name of that species forever. 

 Unfortunately, in the light of modern rules, by his publi- 

 cation of the word u gigantea " he unwittingly disqualified 

 that term for use ever after in the same genus. Keeping 

 these points in mind, we now come to the other later 

 discovered species the Sierra Big Tree. 



Discovered in 1852, specimens were sent in 1853 to Dr. 

 Lindley, of London, who thought a type of a new genus 

 was before him, so he proudly named it Wellingtonia 

 gigantea, in honor of the Iron Duke of England. The next 

 year, Decaisne, a French botanist, detecting that the tree 

 was merely a second species of Sequoia, named it Sequoia 

 gigantea. In August of the same year (1854) Dr. C. E. 

 Winslow, a naturalist of California, visited the Calaveras 

 grove and, struck by the magnificence of this colossal tree 

 and displeased with the English name given it, he, in a 

 burst of patriotic pride, wrote a spirited letter to the Cali- 

 fornia Farmer, dated, "Washington Mammoth Grove, 

 Aug. 8, 1854,'' describing the trees' vast dimensions, the 

 minute of their foliage, fruit, etc., concluding with denun- 

 ciation of the name it bore when "so worthy a name as 

 that of Washington, would strike the world at large as far 

 more suited to the most remarkable tree indigenous to a 

 country where his name is the most distinguished." "If 

 the Big Tree be a Taxodium," he exclaims, "let it be 

 called Taxodium Washingtonianum; if it be properly ranked 

 as a new genus let it be called to the end of time, Washing- 

 ton'm. Calif ornica !" As affairs have turned out this is a 

 most important letter, for Dr. Winslow's famous protest 



