210 A MANUAL OF THE CONIFERjE. 



approximation to the truth was obtained by Professor Whitney, the 

 State Geologist of California, by counting the rings of a felled tree in 

 the Calaveras Grove. This tree was 24 feet in diameter, exclusive 

 of the bark, and contained one thousand two hundred and fifty-five 

 annual rings at a section of the trunk made 30 feet from the base. 

 " There was a small cavity in the centre of the tree which prevented 

 an accurate fixing of the age ; but making clue allowance for that, 

 and for the time it required to grow to the height at which the 

 count was made, it will be safe to say that this particular tree, which 

 was probably about as large as any standing in the grove, was, in 

 round numbers, one thousand three hundred years old." ^Further 

 evidence as to the age attained by the Wellingtonias was more recently 

 supplied to Sir J. D. Hooker, by Mr. Muir, who communicated the 

 following particulars to the members of the Royal Institution in an 

 address delivered in April, 1878. " A tree felled jn 1875 had no 

 appearance of age ; it was 69 feet in girth, inside the bark, and 

 the number of annual rings, counted by three persons, varied between 

 two thousand one hundred and twenty-five and two thousand one 

 hundred and thirty-nine. Another was 107 feet in girth, inside the 

 bark, at 4 feet from the ground ; its wood was very compact, but 

 showed throughout a considerable portion of the tru,nk, thirty annual 

 rings to the inch. This, if the rings were of uniform diameter, would 

 give the incredible age of six thousand four hundred years ; but as the 

 interior rings of such trees are much broader than the outer, half that 

 number to the inch is a more conceivable estimate, which would give an 

 age of three thousand five hundred years.'' Nevertheless, it is not too 

 much to assume that few, if any, of the existing Wellingtonia ante-date 

 the Christian era, or that, with very few exceptions, the oldest of them 

 reach within five hundred years of that epoch, and whose age, therefore, 

 does not much exceed that of some of the oldest Yews in Great Britain. 



Very little can be said about the economic value of the Welling- 

 tonia. " No known timber is so excessively light, soft, and brittle ; 

 its bark is tough, spongy, and stringy in texture, and seems to be 

 largely charged with a crimson-coloured matter, exuding and harden- 

 ing into a substance like gum. It is a form of tannin, and the 

 Wellingtonia may thus supply a substitute for Oak bark." * 



The Wellingtonia has proved quite hardy in England, Ireland, and 

 the greater part of Scotland. It grows in all ordinary soils in which 

 water does not stagnate, but evidently prefers light, rich, and deep 

 soils, in open airy places, but not exposed to piercing winds. In 

 such situations its growth is rapid, and it becomes a handsome sym- 

 metrical tree in a few years. In heavy soils its growth is slower, 

 and its habit in consequence more dense. Under all circumstances the 

 trunk increases in thickness with a rapidity greater in proportion to 



* Lawson's Pinetum Britannicum, Sequoia Wellingtonia, page 13. 



