20 BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



Mackenzie River, and Alaska, It is named S. L'angsdorfii, but is pronounced to be 

 very much like S. sempervirens, our living redwood of the California coast, and to 

 be the ancient representative of it. Fossil specimens of a similar, if not the same, 

 species have been recently detected in the Rocky Mountains by Hayden, and deter- 

 mined by our eminent paleontological botanist, Lesquereux; and he assures me that 

 he has the common redwood itself from Oregon, in a deposit of tertiary age. Another 

 Sequoia (^S*. Sternhergii) , discovered in miocene deposits in Greenland, is pronounced 

 to be the representative oiS. gigantea, the Big Tree of the Californian Sierra. If the 

 Taxodium of tertiary time in Europe and throughout the arctic regions is the ancestor 

 of our present bald cypress, which is assumed in regarding them as specifically iden- 

 tical, then I think we may, with our present light, fairly assume that the two red- 

 woods of California are the direct or collateral decendants of the two ancient species 

 which so closely resemble them. 



The forests of the arctic zone in tertiary times contained at least three other species 

 of Sequoia, as determined by their remains, one of which, from Spitzbergen, also 

 much resembles the common redwood of California. Another, ' ' which appears to 

 have been the commonest coniferous tree on Disco," was common in England and 

 some other parts of Europe. So the Sequoias, now remarkable for their restricted 

 •station and numbers, as well as for their extraordinary size, are of an ancient stock; 

 their ancestors and kindred formed a large part of the forests which flourished 

 throughout the polar regions, now desolate and ice clad, and which extended into 

 the low latitudes in Europe. On this continent one species at least had reached to 

 the vicinity of its present habitat before the glaciation of the region. Among the 

 fossil specimens already found in California, but which our trustworthy paleonto- 

 logical botanist has not yet had time to examine, we may expect to find evidence of 

 the early arrival of these two redwoods upon the ground which they now, after much 

 vicissitude, scantily occupy. 



NATURAL REPRODUCTION OF THE BIG TREE. 



It mnj bo said that the north groves of Big Trees show little or no 

 signs of extending their very limited range, hardly, even, of holding 

 their present place, except under the most favorable conditions. Mr. 

 Slid worth, dendrologist of the Division of Forestry, makes the follow- 

 ing statements about the Calaveras Grove and Stanislaus Grove of Bi 

 Trees, which, it is important to notice, have been protected from bot. 

 fire and grazing since the early fifties: 



Unlike tlie other species of its kind (Sequoia), the Coast Kedwood, the Big Tree 

 reproduces itself so slowly and with such uncertainty as to be practically at a stand- 

 still in these groves. A few seedlings took root in 1853-1855 in the Calaveras Grove, 

 and are now 2 or 8 feet in diameter. There is no other evidence of increase in this 

 grove, although the large trees are in a most thrifty state. The forest is not well 

 watered, and the humus is too dry to encourage the reproduction of this species. 

 Pines, firs, and cedars appear better able to propagate themselves on the same ground. 

 On the borders of the grove the soil is so constantly dry and exposed to the tram- 

 pling of grazing herds as to allow no reproduction outside of the forest. Moreover, 

 the small, heavy seeds are carried to no considerable distance by the winds, as in the 

 case of the pines, firs, and cedars. But if the reproduction of the Big Tree were the 

 best conceivable, it would take several thousand years to replace the present groves 

 after they were destroyed. 



The Stanislaus Grove is sparingly watered in parts by small perennial spring streams, 

 and as a result shows a few small patches of Big Tree seedlings. (See PL V. fig. 1.) 

 The constant soil moisture in the vicinity of these streams enables the seed to ger- 

 minate, but only Avhere big logs and other heavy debris exclude cattle and sheep. To 

 lumber this tract would certainly soon effect the drying up of the small water supply, 

 as it has already done elsewhere. The preservation of the race of Big Trees in this 

 locality is unquestionably dependent on maintaining the present groves intact. 



One region there is, however, where the Big Trees are reproducing 

 themselves with some regularity. This is on the South Fork of the 

 Kaweah River, and particularly on both branches of the Tule River, 

 where there are young trees in abundance and of almost every age. 

 But the discouraging aspect is that these groves are at present likely 



