To 7 Se ee 
SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 585 
we are concerned, we note that each has its own species of pines, 
firs, larches, etc., and of a few deciduous-leaved trees, such as 
oaks and maples; all of which have no peculiar significance for the 
present purpose, because they are of genera which are common 
all round the northern hemisphere. Leaving these out of view, 
the noticeable point is that the vegetation of California is most 
strikingly unlike that of the Atlantic United States. They possess 
some plants, and some peculiarly American plants in common,— 
enough to show, as I imagine, that the difficulty was not in the 
getting from the one district to the other, or into both from a com- 
mon source, but in abiding there. The primordially unbroken 
forest of Atlantic North America, nourished by rainfall distributed 
throughout the year, is widely separated from the western region 
of sparse and discontinuous tree-belts of the same latitude on the 
western side of the continent, where summer rain is wanting or 
nearly so, by immense treeless plains and plateaux of more or less 
aridity, traversed by longitudinal mountain ranges of a similar 
character. Their nearest approach is at the north, in the latitude 
of Lake Superior, where, on a more rainy line, trees of the Atlan- 
tie forest and that of Oregon may be said to interchange. The 
change of species and of the aspect of vegetation in crossing, say 
on the forty-seventh parallel, is slight in comparison with that on 
the thirty-seventh or near it. Confining our attention to the 
. lower latitude, and under the exceptions already specially noted, 
we may say that almost every characteristic form in the vegetation 
of the Atlantic States is wanting in California, and the character- 
istic plants and trees of California are wanting here. 
California has no Magnolia nor tulip trees, nor star-anise tree ; 
no so-called Papaw (Asimina) ; no barberry of the common single- 
leaved sort; no Podophyllum or other of the peculiar associated 
genera; no Nelumbo nor white water-lily; no prickly ash nor 
sumach ; no loblolly-bay nor Stuartia; no basswood nor linden 
trees ; neither locust, honey-locust, coffee trees (Gymnocladus) nor 
yellow-wood (Cladrastis): nothing answering to Hydrangea or 
Witch-hazel, to gum-trees (Nyssa and Liquidambar), Viburnum or 
Diervilla ; it has few asters and golden-rods ; no lobelias ; no huckle- 
ies and hardly any blueberries ; no Epigæa, charm of our earli- 
est eastern Spring, tempering an icy April wind with a delicious wild 
fragrance ; no Kalmia nor Clethra, nor holly, nor persimmon ; no 
Catalpa tree, nor trumpet-creeper (Tecoma) ; nothing answering to 
