54 Prof. Asa Gray on Sequoia and its History. 



In their development they may, perhaps, lead us up to ques- 

 tions of considerable scientific interest. 



I shall not detain you with any remarks (which would now 

 be trite) upon the size or longevity of these far-famed Sequoia 

 trees, or of the sugar-pines, incense-cedar, and firs associated 

 with them, of which even the prodigious bulk of the dominating 

 Sequoia does not sensibly diminish the grandeur. Although 

 no account and no photographic representation of either species 

 of the far-famed Sequoia trees give any adequate impression 

 of their singular majesty, still less of their beauty, yet my 

 interest in them did not culminate merely or mainly in con- 

 siderations of their size and age. Other trees in other parts of 

 the world may claim to be older ; certain Australian gum-trees 

 {Eucaly'pti) are said to be taller. Some, we are told, rise so 

 high that they might even cast a flicker of shadow upon the 

 summit of the pyramid of Cheops ; yet the oldest of them 

 doubtless grew from seed which was shed long after the names 

 of the pyramid-builders had been forgotten. So far as we can 

 judge from the actual counting of the layers of several trees, 

 no Sequoia now alive can sensibly antedate the Christian era. 



Nor was I much impressed with an attraction of man's 

 adding. That the more remarkable of these trees should bear 

 distinguishing appellations seems proper enough ; but the 

 tablets of personal names which are affixed to many of them 

 in the most visited groves (as if the memory of more or less 

 notable people of our day might be made more enduring by 

 the juxtaposition) do suggest some incongruity. When we 

 consider that a hand's breadth at the circumference of any one 

 of the venerable trunks so placarded has recorded in annual 

 lines the lifetime of the individual thus associated with it, one 

 may question whether the next hand's breadth may not 

 measure the fame of some of the names thus ticketed for ad- 

 ventitious immortality. Whether it be the man or the tree 

 that is honoured in the connexion, probably either would live 

 as long, in fact and in memory, without it. 



One notable thing about these Sequoia trees is their isolation. 

 Most of the trees associated with them are of peculiar species ; 

 and some of them are nearly as local. Yet every pine, fir, 

 and cypress in California is in some sort familiar, because it has 

 near relatives in other parts of the world ; but the redwoods 

 have none. The redwood (including in that name the two 

 species of "big trees") belongs to the general cypress family, 

 laui'iBsui generis. Thus isolated systematically, and extremely 

 isolated geographically, and so wonderful in size and port, 

 they, more than other trees, suggest questions. 



Were they created thus local and lonely, denizens of Cali- 



