362 THE FLOEIST AND 



the Sequoia sempervirens, sterile branches of a conifer, found without a 

 name in Douglass's collections. Better informed by later discoveries, the 

 editor of the Botanical Magazine, recognizes now in these branches, and 

 consequently in the figure quoted, another Conifer lately introduced in 

 European Horticulture, the Abies bracteata, (see Bot. Mag. t. 4.640 and 

 Flore des Serres, t. 809). As to the monster tree of Douglass, Mr. W. 

 Lobb, following certain very plausible conjectures, thought that this would 

 be the true Sequoia sempervirens, so that the Sequoia gigantea of Endli- 

 chcr, founded on the measurements of the plant of Douglass, and On the 

 figure in Hooker's Icones, which represents the Abies bracteata, should be 

 erased from catalogues as an imaginary being, formed of extravagant 

 elements. 



By a happy circumstance, one of the most skilful purveyors of the horticul- 

 tural establishment of Messrs. Yeitch of Exeter, Mr. W. Lobb, in his re- 

 cent exploration of California vegetation, has just assured to horticulture 

 the possession of a conifer more collossal than the Taxodium sempervirens, a 

 tree imperfectly known as to its botanical characters, but which vegetates 

 at present in England, and which it is hoped will become as much dis- 

 tributed as the Deodar Cedars. This tree, entirely new to science, has 

 received from Dr. Lindlcy the name of Wellingtonia gigantea, in honor, 

 it is said of the greatest hero of modern times. Many Frenchmen would 

 take away the epithet to make it correct, but the English language ignores 

 this subtle distinction. 



The foliage of grown specimens of the Wellingtonia gigantea, can in no 

 way be confounded with that of the Taxodium ; it resembles more that 

 of the Juniperus. , The branches, slender, filiform and pendant are covered 

 with little imbricated leaves in three rows, alternate, straight, appressed, ovat- 

 elanceolate, acute, coriaceous, pale green. On the young specimens from 

 seed, which are not, so to speak, characterized, the leaves are more dis- 

 persed, oblong subulate, pointed or mucronate, keeled on the back, fiat on 

 the front, except a little swelling in the middle. The cones are about 

 the size of those of Pinus silvestris, but resemble a great deal in their 

 structure, according to Sir William Hooker, those of the Sciodapytis of 

 Siebold and Zuccarini, a Japanese genus entirely different in aspect and 

 foliage. These cones, such as they possess in Europe, after complete 

 maturity and distribution of the seeds, are oval, obtuse, sessile, formed of 

 a thick and cylindrical axis, on which are inserted without any articula- 

 tion and by an enlarged base, woody, divergent scales, whose thickness is 

 increased by the suture of the bract with the corresponding scale. The 



