80 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
some of its cones, leaves, and wood, to botanists in New York, 
but they were unfortunately lost on the way. A few months 
later, an English collector sent some specimens to Professor 
Lindley, who not only found the tree to be of a new species, 
but determined to make a new genus of it, and he affixed to it 
the name Wellingtonia gigantea. When the news of the se- 
lection of this name arrived in California, a foolish and preten- 
tious fellow, who meddled with matters of science of which he 
knew nothing, wrote a ranting article against Lindley, for try- 
ing to confer the honor of the great tree of America upon a 
Briton like Wellington, and declaring that the only proper 
title for the tree would be Washingtonia gigantea. If there 
had been any bad taste in conferring the name of a Tory and 
aman of blood upon such a magnificent tree, still the rules of 
botanical nomenclature are well established, and the matter of 
the name is left entirely to the discretion of the man who first 
gives a technical description of the plant and determines its 
genus. American botanists, therefore, never recognized the 
name Washingtonia, because Lindley’s name was of undoubt- 
ed priority ; and to acknowledge the priority, and yet recognize 
the Washingtonia, would be equivalent to proving their own 
stupidity. And yet English botanists have, in scientific rec- 
ords, accused American botanists and Americans” of making 
an agitation to establish the name as Washingtonia. These 
facts are part of the history of botany, and facts of interest 
relating to the big trees. 
The general opinion among botanists is, that Lindley was 
wrong in declaring the mammoth tree to be of a new genus: 
it is a Sequoia, related in the closest manner to the redwood. 
When the redwood and the mammoth tree come to be held 
as of a distinct genera, then nearly every difference heretofore 
considered merely specific may be made the basis for establish- 
ing new genera. Dr. Seeman called the mammoth tree the 
Sequoia gigantea, and it bears that name with botanists gen- 
erally. 
The Seguoias are found only in California; the Sequoia 
