200 TAXODIN AND ARAUCARINEE 
America call Cedars—the Red Cedar tree, around 
which, Tennyson tells us, the red men danced. 
The name Sequoia was bestowed upon them in 
honour of a certain Cherokee Indian chief who 
rejoiced in the name of Sequoyah. Now this chief 
must have been a very remarkable man, with a life- 
history well worth looking into, but it is not a 
story here to attempt any exhaustive narration 
of. He seems to have been a good farmer and 
successful silversmith, but his accomplishments did 
not end here.. In addition to these two avocations, 
we read that he contrived to invent an alphabet of 
his own ; so these trees, the mightiest among trees, 
without shadow of doubt, obtained their namz from 
a man of no mean or ordinary abilities. 
Between the two Sequoias, while there are great 
affinities in the shape of their cones and in the colour 
of their corky, cinnarnon, red-brown-coloured trunks, 
their leaves are as different as, say, the leaves of a 
Macrocarpa Cypress and a churchyard Yew Tree.. 
The leaves of the S. Gigantea (Wellingtonia) are 
affixed to the herbaceous-looking branchlets that 
hang out like so many strings of frayed whipcord, 
and the frayed appearance is caused by the detach- 
ment of the end of the leaf from the stem, a system 
which is generally described in the Cypresses as 
exhibiting freedom at the apex. 
The leaves of the S. Sempervirens upon the lateral 
branches, on the other hand, recall the leaves of the 
Yew. At a second glance they are easily discernible 
from those of the Yew, inasmuch as the Sequoia 
has pale, but very distinct, white stomatiferous bands 
upon the under-surface, where the Yew displays a 
dull yellow colour. Recent observers of the tree in 
its native country tell us that the leaves on the top 
of an old Sempervirens show a tendency to assimilate 
themselves in shape, more in accord with those of, 
