CALIFORNIA NUTMEG TREE. 5 



tlemairs acquaintance — never saw him — but took special 

 pains to find out his name many years ago, that we might 

 remember him in our prayers and blessings so long as we 

 live, and for ever after, for preserving that beautiful tree. 

 But perhaps the grandest California Nutmeg Tree known on 

 the coast is that near Duncan's Mills, in Mendocino County, 

 over one hundred feet by four, forty feet of clear shaft, and 

 straight as an arrow from the bow of the Great Archer him- 

 self; sound and flourishing in all vigor, with spreading top, 

 rejoicing and ready as a strong man to run a race : well 

 worth a pilgrimage to behold, in its glory ; a nobl£ and living 

 witness that some lumbermen have sylvan consciences ; may 

 these and their shadows never be less. 



Loth to leave the subject, a few words of descriptive detail 

 and a general remark must close this preliminary notice. 

 The bark is even, of darkish color; fruit, solitary or rarely 

 clustering, close set, pending from the underside of the twigs, 

 obovoid or oval, nearly two inches long by one and one 

 quarter in diameter, plum or somewhat fig-shaped when 

 divested of greenish longitudinally watermelon or pepo- 

 striped thick skin-like flesh ; the inside meat-structure of the 

 oblong nut or kernel, cut transversely across, resembles the 

 internal structure of a nutmeg, hence the common name; 

 and thereupon many foolish vagaries, bandied about by 

 ignorance. 



This tree extends from coast to sierra, up to at least four 

 thousand six hundred feet near Yosemite Valley, as finely 

 flourishing as here on the coast, but never in extensive 

 groves; rarely in sociable numbers, often scattered, and 

 rather rare. Found also in the southern Atlantic States, 

 China, and Japan, but distinct species from that in Califor- 

 nia. There is not the slightest unpleasant odor in handling 

 this tree, and to perpetuate such scandal by gratuitously 

 foisting an obnoxious name — never known nor heard of save 

 from some unreliable sources abroad, and echoed by Eastern 

 ignorance — is deplorable. With some it certainly cannot be 

 an effort to calumniate both men and things, in one fell 

 swoop, reminding one of recoiling "total depravity," there- 

 fore are we fain to consider it one more instance in the long 

 list of sins to be winked at. 



