24 FOREST TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



body part narrowly wedge-like, often very short, pointed in 

 the slightly notched end, which is apt to remind one of 

 parsnip seed or the like. 



Finally, in all due homage, do we accord to this Great 

 First Born of the Forest, not only priority in time, but in 

 degree of goodness as to quality, preeminence at nearly all 

 points of view, and as to state — past, present, and to come — 

 whether as to use, magnitude, dignity, elegance, or beauty, 

 yielding the palm of our forests to Sequoias, for they are 

 indeed the Great St. John Cedars that never grow old, are 

 never decayed, nor ever, diseased, and forever rallying in 

 youthful vigor to repair their storm-lost crowns; never 

 known to die a natural death — sylvan types of the immortals. 



REDWOOD. 



(Sequoia sempervirens.) 



For they sing to my heart, 

 And it sings to them evermore." 



— J. P. Lowell. 



TOWERING Redwood Trees, of most enormous propor- 

 tions, sentineled our entrance of the Golden Gate in 

 1849. Alas! what wits it now to us whether they saw 

 the vandals or the vandals them ? Lofty landmarks, objects 

 of intense interest, this great colossal and characteristic 

 evergreen of the California coast ! bold, nay awe-inspiring, 

 grand and imposing, herculeampillars of the heavens, from 

 out whose blue vault they looked abroad o'er land and sea, 

 high above the hill-tops beyond the bay. 



Of the same genus as the Giant Washington Cypress, of 

 world-renowned fame, of nearly equal hight — two hundred 

 to three hundred feet, fifteen to twenty feet in diameter 

 (rarely more), and usually seventy-five to one hundred feet or 

 more of clean trunk, only second to Sequoia of Sierra — attains 

 to thousands of years of age, and what is even more marvel- 

 ous, these monstrous stumps still maintain their vitality. 

 Trees of all sizes and to the extremest age, when cut down 

 forthwith shoot up unnumbered saplings of great vigor and 

 exceeding rapidity of growth; continued repetition, at brief 

 intervals, only can kill them. The numerous branches are 

 small and very short ; indeed, relative to the size of the trunk, 

 in age, quite insignificant; as it were, mere appendages. So 

 intently devoted are they to the all absorbing timber-pro- 



