XXV. 
THE WELLINGTONIA. 
Wellingtonia gigantea (Lindley); Washingtonia gigantea (of 
the Americans); Sequoia gigantea (Edlicher) : The Mammoth 
Tree.—This new genus of Conifer, named in compliment to 
the Duke of Wellington, was discovered in June 1850, in a 
grove in Calaveras County, in the Sierra Nevada, near the 
source of the Stanislas in Upper California, and about 225 
miles from San Francisco. The tree having become known 
to the California settlers, it is said they directed Mr. Lobb, the 
botanist and plant-collector, to the Calaveras grove, who dis- 
covered and introduced the tree into Britain in 1853,—the 
“manuscript notice” of former explorers not counting as 
publication. Besides the Calaveras grove, there are several 
other groves of the tree known to exist throughout the 
country. An interesting description of some of them is given 
by Mr. Hutchings, in his Scenes of California. The Cal- 
averas grove has been often described, and the public are 
familiar with the names of these remarkable trees,—as the 
Father of the Forest, the Mother of the Forest, Hercules, the 
Two Guardsmen, the Three Graces, etc. etc. 
The name of J. M. Wooster, June 1850, is cut on the 
“ Hercules” tree, one of the party who gives the credit of first 
discovering the trees, Mr. Hutchings tells us, to W. White- 
head, Esq., who “ while tying his shoe looked casually round 
and saw the trees” (June 1850). 
Mr. Hutchings gives an account of the Mariposa grove, and 
the girth of 132 of the trees, nearly half the number the 
group contains ; only three of these reach or exceed 100 feet 
in circumference, two are between 90 and 100 feet, and the 
