Botany and Zoology. 443 
probable age. | think it more likely to be shown, when the wanting 
data are supplied, that the tree does not antedate the Christian era. 
There are said to be 80 or 90 such trees, of from 10 to 20 feet in di- 
ameter, growing within the circuit of a mile from the one felled. 
When the next of these venerable trees are wantonly destroyed, it is to 
be hoped that its layers will be accurately counted on the whole sec- 
tion, and the thickness of each century’s growth carefully measured on 
the radius. 
The tree in question is a near relative of the Redwood of California, 
namely the Zaxodium sempervirens of Don, of late very properly 
distinguished as a separate genus under the unmeaning and not eupho- 
nious name of Sequoia, a tree now grown in England, and Speen 
also in our own vicinity, where it is barely hardy, My friend, Dr. 
Torrey, has for nearly a year possessed specimens of folin ze of 
this tree, which he took to be a new species of Sequoia. The fruit 
and branches of the jutipar like foliage (probably only one form of a 
dimorphous foliage, which is common in Cypressinee) having been re- 
ceived in England from Mr. Lobb, by Dr. Lindley and Sir. Wm. 
lingtonia. The wood is, I believe, much the,sume as that of Sequoia 
sempervirens, which tree also attains a gigantic size. The principal 
characters yet ascertained are that the cones of We/llingtonia are ob- 
Jong and have a thick woody axis. Additional materials are needed to 
confirm the genus, if such it 
Synopsis Plantarum Gluniacearim, autore E. G. Steuben, fase. 
Grim we, p. 1-80. Stutigart, 1854. Imp. 8vo.—The oe in 
this new revision of Gaines: are about < full as those of Kunth’: 
Enumeratio Plantarum: the references less full. The large page is 
compact mee in double columns, so that eleven such fascicull may, as 
takes in the Oryzee, ee Phalaridee (in which Zea is still included !) 
and the greater part of the Panicea,—among them 568 species of Pa- 
nicum ! without aeahik the end of that genus. A proper snk coe 
3. Lindley’s Folia Orchidacea: part 5, was published in Eatiniane 
last. It comprises 8 genera, of which the il ncipal as to — a) 
Species are Brassia, Sobralia, and Celogyn 
4. Epistole Caroli a Linné ad Fgh de Jussien Iurdiva, 
mutue Bernardi ad Linneum; curanie Adriano de Jussieu, (Ex A 
Acad. Art. et Scient. Amer. ser. nov. tom. v.) 354 = opp. 54, hoe 
lt is somewhat singular that the correspondence of these two founders 
of modern botany should have remained so long unpublished (except- 
ing translations into English of several of the letters published by Sir 
J. E. Smith); and it is not a little remarkable that it should at length 
be given to the world in this country, as a contribution by the lamented 
editor to the publications of an American scientific society of which he 
was a distinguished foreign member. ‘The notes furnished by Adrien 
de Jussieu possess the sad interest of having been the last scientific oc: 
Cupation of the last of the Jussicu’s. The ‘publication makes a han 
aie ee of ne ammeiss of the American 
and Scien The greater part of the extra co 
of As 
