December 25, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



615 



and are now building large mills. It is not probable that 

 in ten years any of these ten forest groups will remain 

 except the Calaveras groves, and perhaps one or two other 

 small groups, now used as summer resorts, unless imme- 

 diate steps are taken to prevent the further filings of timber 

 claims. The records at the Land Office show that in the 

 past twenty-two months 131,680 acres of heavily timbered 

 land have been bought from the Government, much of it 

 obtained by a systematic evasion of the laws. Four-tifths 

 of this land has been taken up along the western slope 

 of the Sierra Nevada, and includes most of the Sequoia 

 gigantea districts. 



The Calaveras grove covers fifty acres, and contains 

 ninety-three large trees. One tree in 1854 was stripped of 

 its bark to a height of 1 1 6 feet, by a man who thought he 

 could make a fortune exhibiting it. The speculation, for- 

 tunately, failed, or the grove would have been ruined by 

 similar enterprises. This tree is estimated to contain 537,000 

 feet of marketable lumber, and stands 325 feet in height, 

 girthing eighty-four feet without the bark. A fallen tree 

 was about 400 feet in height, and the circumference of the 

 trunk near the base is no feet. The south grove contains 

 380 Sequoias of good size — some very large. One of the 

 largest of the standing trees in the Calaveras groves is the 

 "Grizzly Giant," thirty-three feet in diameter near the 

 ground. There is a tree in the Kaweah region that is thirty- 

 six feet in diameter, and there maybe even larger ones. 



The Giant Sequoia yields seeds in such abundance (Mr. 

 Bradley counting 324 seeds in a small cone) and the 

 vitality of fresh seed is so uniform that millions of trees 

 could be grown and planted on the mountain slopes of 

 California. In the Sacramento, San Joaquin, Sonoma, 

 Santa Clara and other large valleys the tree thrives with- 

 out especial care. In most places it has grown faster than 

 the S. sempervirens. If the state were to undertake to re- 

 forest the waste lands, the Giant Sequoia would offer 

 one of the best trees for that purpose. The reason why it 

 now grows only in such isolated and small groups, instead 

 of in extensive forests, is because its small, light seeds 

 cannot easily root themselves on the dry, leaf-covered soil 

 of the region. The climate has changed ; the tree is slowly 

 disappearing. Wherever mountain fires, or cloud-bursts, 

 have swept away the thick layer of coniferous leaves and 

 scales from the ground, young Sequoias have sprung up. 

 This tree, like the Monterey Cypress, has' every element 

 of vitality but one — its light, thin seeds are not adapted to 

 survive under the present climatic conditions. The suc- 

 cessful type of tree-seed is that of the Pinus Sahiniana, 

 which holds its own so well on the hot foot-hills of Cali- 

 fornia. The Great Sequoia lacks the capacity of ^S". 

 sempervirens to reproduce itself from suckers from the 

 roots, and if it is ever to become an important factor in the 

 timber supply of California, its seeds' must be planted 

 under favoring conditions. None of the Pacific Coast coni- 

 fers are more easily grown when the seeds are sown in 

 moist soil. 



Another illustration of the dangers to which some tree- 

 seeds are subjected may be found in the case oi Eucalyptus 

 globulus. Groves of this tree were planted on the dry 

 California hill-sides twenty years ago. They now perfect 

 millions of seeds, but the seeds never grow ; they never 

 reach the surface of the dry, leaf-covered soil, or insects 

 carry them off. But many pounds of this seed are gathered 

 by the nurserymen, and sown with better results than with 

 imported seeds. In the moist valleys the Eucalyptus 

 grows from self-sown seeds, but never on the hill-sides. 

 Yet, seedlings three months old are fit to plant anywhere. 

 Without replanting, the Eucalyptus forests of California 

 will mostly disappear in the course of time, just as the 

 Sequoias are disappearing. 



The guide books to the Calaveras and other groves still 

 place the age of the Sequoia trees at between three and 

 four thousand years. Professor Whitney's count, it may 

 be remembered, gave a result of 1,255 years. Mr. Brad- 

 ley made a careful study of the same tree, counting th e 



two ends of the lowest section of the trunk, eighteen feet 

 apart. His results were 1,240 and 1,226. This is a 

 mature tree, fifteen feet in diameter. A large specimen of 

 Sequoia sempervirens, 1,200 years old, measured eleven 

 feet in diameter. 



Mr. Bradley takes the Pavilion Tree, which Whitney first 

 measured, divides the cross-section into annular zones of 

 one hundred rings, and computes the area of each zone. 

 In this way he arrives at the wood growth for each cen- 

 tury. He assumes that 300 years brought the tree to its 

 full height. His ratio of volumes of growth for twelve 

 centuries, the maximum being 1,000, then becomes as 

 follows: ^T, 308, 557, 963, 1,000, 794, 841, 908, 828, 817, 

 907 and 958. The fourth and fifth centuries may be sup- 

 posed to mark the period of expansion of the head, after 

 the tree had reached light and air above the surrounding 



forests. _,, , ^^ , -7 



San Francisco. Charles Howard Shinn. 



Notes upon Some North American Trees. — XV, 



I. Magnolia grandiflora. — Linnseus, in the first edition 

 of his "Species Plantarum," grouped provisionally all the 

 species of Magnolia known to him under one comprehen- 

 sive name, Magnolia Virginiana, distinguishing the differ- 

 ent forms under varietal names. That he was not sure 

 that these trees all belonged to the same species, and that 

 his name was a provisional one only, is made clear by his 

 remark that "only eye-witnesses of these trees in their 

 native country can determine whether these («, /?, y, S, e) 

 are distinct.''* Now what becomes of the name M. Virgin- 

 iana, the oldest Linnajan name for any of our Magnolias.'' 

 If these varieties had turned out after further investigation 

 to be merely forms of one polymorphous species, then the 

 Linna;an collective name would have held of course; but 

 being provisional only, it was to be dropped if the provis- 

 ional species had to be broken up. That this was Lin- 

 naeus' intention seems clearly enough shown by the fact 

 that having discovered before the publication of the sec- 

 ond edition of the " Species " that his varieties were really 

 distinct species, he gave them specific names, using, in 

 every case but one, the varietal names of the first edition. 



The exception was the variety /?. foilida, which, in the 

 second edition, became Magnolia grandiflora. There was 

 confusion, evidently, with regard to this tree at the time of 

 the publication of the "Species," for Linnceus quotes un- 

 der his variety fi. foelida after Ehret's figure of M. grandi- 

 yfora in Catesby's "Natural History of Carolina," t. 61, Clay- 

 ton's description of the Umbrella-tree, "Magnolia flore 

 maximo albo foetidio, foliis deciduis amplis, florum ad 

 ramulorum seriem sphterice cingentibus, fructu majori" 

 {Flora Virginica, 61). This confusion may account for Lin- 

 naeus' considering that the flowers of the evergreen Magnolia 

 had a disagreeable odor, a mistake which he very likely 

 discovered before the publication of his second edition, the 

 discovery inducing him to select a more appropriate name 

 in place of the varietal name of the first edition. But if 

 the oldest specific or varietal name is to be adopted, Mag- 

 nolia grandiflora must give way to Magnolia fa:lida. The 

 change is a most unfortunate one in every way and I have 

 hesitated a long time before making it. In nomenclature, 

 however, one principle or the other must be strictly adhered 

 to, and nothing can safely be left to the judgment or the 

 taste of the individual author. If an author believes that 

 the oldest specific or varietal name given to a plant on or 

 after 1753 (the date of the publication of the first edition of 

 the "Species Plantarum") is the right one to use, the rule 

 must be applied absolutely, or it is better to make no 

 changes at all, and to allow the names which have come 

 into common use to stand, whether they are the oldest 

 names or not. Ornithologists invariably adopt the oldest 

 specific name. Botanists, however, are still divided in 

 their opinion on this subject. Those who agree with me 

 that under all circumstances the oldest specific name is the 



*I. — "Utrum b.-E: <T, fS,y,8, F, siiit distinctcc, determincnt antoptse in folo 

 natural!?" Linnjeus, "Species Plantarum," 536. 



