THE SEQUOIAS 267 



spray. The head is pyramidal in young trees, later be- 

 coming irregular and narrow, and exceedingly small in 

 forests by the crowding of the trees and the death of lower 

 branches. The leaves on the terminal shoots spread into 

 a flat spray, two-ranked, like those of a balsam fir. Each 

 blade is flat, tapering to both ends, and from one fourth 

 to one half an inch in length. Awl-shaped and much 

 shorter leaves are scattered on year-old twigs, back of the 

 new shoots, resembling the foliage of the Big Tree. 



The cones are small and almost globular, maturing in 

 a single season, scarcely an inch long, with three to five 

 winged seeds under each scale. Seedling redwoods come 

 quickly from this yearly sowing, and thrive under the 

 forest cover, unless fire or the trampling feet of grazing 

 flocks destroy tliem. After the lumberman, the virile 

 redwood sends up shoots around the bleeding stumps, thus 

 reinforcing the seedling tree and promising the renewal of 

 the forest groves in the centuries to come. 



Redwood lumber is the most important building ma- 

 terial on the Pacific Coast. The hardest and choicest 

 wood comes in limited quantities from the stumps which 

 furnish curly and birdseye wood, used by the makers 

 of bric-a-brac and high-priced cabinet work. Shingles, 

 siding, and interior finish of houses consume quantities 

 of the yearly output of the mills. Demand for fence 

 posts, railway ties and cooperage increases. Quantities 

 of lumber are shipped east to take the place of white pine 

 no longer obtainable. 



In cultivation the redwood is a graceful, quick-growing, 

 beautiful evergreen, successful in the Southeastern states, 

 and often met in European parks and gardens. Weeping 

 forms are very popular abroad. 



