THE FLORA OF THE EARLY MESOZOIC. 



181 



Salisburia belongs to the yews, but an equally curious 

 fact applies to the cypresses. The genus Sequoia, limited 

 at present to two species, both Californian, and one of 

 them the so-called "big tree," celebrated for the gigantic 

 size to which it attains, is represented by species found as 

 far back at least as the Lower Cretaceous, and in every 

 part of the northern hemi- 

 sphere.* It seems to haye 

 thriven in all these regions 

 throughout the Mesozoic 

 and early Kainozoic, and 

 then to have disappeared, 

 leaving only a small rem- 

 nant to represent it in 

 modern days. A number 

 of species have been de- 

 scribed from the Mesozoic 

 and Tertiary, all of them 

 closely related to those now 

 existing (Fig. 67). 



The following notice of 

 these trees is for the most 

 part translated, with some 

 modifications and abridg- 

 ment, from a paper read 

 by the late Prof. Heer be- 

 fore the Botanical Section 

 of the Swiss Natural His- 

 tory Society : 



The name itself deserves 

 consideration. It is that 



of an Indian of the Cherokee tribe, Sequo Yah, who in- 

 vented an alphabet without any aid from the outside world 

 of culture, and taught it to his tribe by writing it upon 



Fig, 



Sequoia SmitMana, Heer. 

 L. Cretaceous. 



* In the Eocene of Australia. 



