380 SEQUOIA. 



covered with very small scale-like leaves. Cones solitary, 

 terminal, somewhat globular, or egg-shaped, rather blunt at 

 the ends, and one inch long. Scales numerous, wedge-shaped, 

 from sixteen to twenty in number, smallest near the base, 

 transversely keeled, very much sunken in the middle, irregu- 

 larly shaped, wrinkled on the summit, and furnished in the 

 middle of the hollow centre with a stout, horn-shaped, blunt 

 point directed outwards. Seeds from three to five under each 

 scale, variously-shaped, and winged. 



The seed-leaves are mostly in twos, but sometimes in threes, 

 ovate-lanceolate, obtuse at the ends, slightly convex, and pale 

 green on the under-side, but of a much darker colour, and 

 somewhat glossy, above. 



A lofty evergreen tree, growing from 200 to 300 feet high, 

 and from twenty to thirty feet in circumference. One tree, 

 called by the American settlers "the Giant of the Forest," 

 measures 270 feet high, and fifty-five feet in circumference, six 

 feet from the ground ; and there is at St. Petersburgh a hori- 

 zontal slab of the wood, received by the late Dr. Fischer from 

 the North-west coast of America, which measures fifteen feet 

 in diameter, and 1008 annual rings marks its age. The timber 

 is of a beautiful red colour, fine, and close-grained, but light 

 and brittle, and never attacked by insects. It is the Cali- 

 fornian Redwood or Bastard Cedar of the settlers, and was 

 first discovered by Menzies in 1796, on the North-west coast 

 of America; afterwards by Douglas, in 1836; and by the 

 Russians (who first introduced it to Europe in a living state), 

 in 1843; but since which time it has been found growing 

 abundantly on the mountains of Santa Cruz, about 60 miles 

 from Monterey, in California, where Mr. Hartweg found that 

 it averaged 200 feet in height, with trunks from 18 to 24 feet 

 in circumference, quite straight, and clear of branches to a 

 height of 60 feet. 



It is quite hardy, but the leaves turn to a purplish-brown 

 jn the winter. 



