SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 151 



which we are concerned, we note that each has its own species 

 of Pines, Firs, Larches, etc., and of a few deciduous-leaved 

 trees such as Oaks and Maples ; all of which have no peculiar 

 significance for the present purpose, because they are of 

 genera which are common all round the northern hemisphere. 

 Leaving these out of view, the noticeable point is that the 

 vegetation of California is most strikingly unlike that of the 

 Atlantic United States. They possess some plants, and some 

 peculiarly American plants in common, — enough to show, as 

 I imagine, that the difficulty was not in the getting from the 

 one district to the other, or into both from a common source, 

 but in abiding there. The primordially unbroken forest of 

 Atlantic North America, nourished by rainfall distributed 

 throughout the year, is widely separated from the western re- 

 gion of sparse and discontinuous tree-belts of the same latitude 

 on the western side of the continent, where summer rain is 

 wanting, or nearly so, by immense treeless plains and plateaux 

 of more or less aridity, traversed by longitudinal mountain 

 ranges of similar character. Their nearest approach is at the 

 north, in the latitude of Lake Superior, where, on a more 

 rainy line, trees of the Atlantic forest and that of Oregon 

 may be said to interchange. The change of species and 

 of the aspect of vegetation in crossing, say on the forty- 

 seventh parallel, is slight in comparison with that on the 

 thirty-seventh or near it. Confiding our attention to the lower 

 latitude, and under the exceptions already specially noted, 

 we may say that almost every characteristic form in the vege- 

 tation of the Atlantic States is wanting in California, and 

 the characteristic plants and trees of California are wanting 

 here. 



California has no Magnolia nor Tulip trees, nor Star-anise- 

 tree ; no so-called Papaw (Asimina) ; no Barberry of the 

 common single-leaved sort ; no Podophyllum or other of the 

 peculiar associated genera ; no Nelumbo nor White Water- 

 lily ; no Prickly Ash nor Sumach ; no Loblolly-bay nor 

 Stuartia ; no Basswood nor Linden-trees ; neither Locust, 

 Honey-locust, Coffee-trees (Gymnocladus), nor Yellow-wood 

 (Cladrastis) ; nothing answering to Hydrangea or Witch- 



