HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 361 



THE WELLINGTONS GIGANTEA. 



Until this time nothing has contradicted the ingenious observation of 

 Buffon, on the comparative size of the animal species in the old and new 

 Continents. To the first, belongs those gigantic pachyderms, whose ap- 

 pearance recals the lost race of Mastodons. 



America and Oceanica seem, on the contrary, less endowed in this birth 

 of large animals. Will it be the same in the vegetable kingdom ? 



One would have supposed it, while the famous Baobab of Senegal, whose 

 largest trunk, measured by Adanson in 1749, was 78 feet in circumference, 

 that is 27 feet in diameter, was thought to be without a rival : but this vegeta- 

 ble mass, only attained a height of 70 feet. India has its gigantic Banyan 

 Figs, (Ficus rellgiosa) and its Tectona grandis; Asia Minor its Cedars; 

 Europe its historical Chestnuts, Oaks, Elms and Lindens. To these colos- 

 sal plants of the Old World, America opposes Palms with tall stems ; Figs 

 with massive trunks: Yan Dieman's Land, its enormous Eucalyptus glo- 

 bulus, and its Huron Pines (Dacrydium Franhlinii.) Bat in this congress 

 of giants disputing the pre-eminence, the king of all of them has just en- 

 tered upon the scene : the one which proudly bears the name of Welling- 

 tonia gigantea, and which, native of the Bocky Mountainsin the interior 

 of California, assures to the New World the honor of possessing the largest 

 plant known. 



The exploration of the basin of Oregon and of Upper California, b*y the 

 unfortunate naturalist traveler Douglass, made known to the botanical 

 world, now twenty-five years ago, the existence of Conifers of immense size. 

 Such was the Pinus Lamhertiana, of Oregon, such, especially, was a tree 

 of California, about which Douglass expresses himself as follows, in a 

 letter published by Sir William Hooker, (Companion to the Botanical 

 Magazine,) (Vol. 11, p. 150.) 



" The wonder of California vegetation is a species of Taxodium, which 

 gives to the aspect of the mountains of this country, a something strange 

 and imposing, which removes you far enough from Europe. At different 

 times I have measured examples 270 feet high, by thirty feet in cirumfer- 

 ence at three feet above the ground, a small number measured 300 feet in 

 height, but without any greater size than those I mentioned. 



What was the supposed Taxodium of Douglass ? No specimen, seed or 

 description was known to botanists. It was therefore from a very hazard- 

 ous conjecture, that Sir William Hooker figured in his Icones plantarum, 

 (tab. 379,) as being probably the tree in question, and at the same time 



