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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Seeds from three to five under each scale, variously shaped, and 

 winged. 



Leaves evergreen, two-ranked, and flat in Sequoia. In the Wel- 

 lingtonia the leaves are needle-shaped, spiral, and persistent, or scale- 

 formed, and imbricated on adult trees, while the leaves of the Sequoia 

 always acquire the form and expansion of a Taxus, and are two-ranked. 

 The leaves on matured plants of Wellingtonia are also scale-like» 

 closely imbricated, and attached to the branch by a broad base ; and 

 when, as happens in the more vigorous shoots, the leaves acquire un- 

 usual development, they still are sessile, with a triangular section, 

 and no tendency whatever to form a flat leaf. 



Lofty trees, found in California and North-west America. 



The genus Wellingtonia is considered by most systematic botanists 

 as untenable, it not being sufficiently distinct from Professor End- 

 licher's genus Sequoia ; nevertheless the name has hitherto been 

 almost universally adopted in garden literature. 



S. gigantea, Torr. in Sillim. Journ. ser. 2, xviii. 150, ex 

 Torr. and Whippl. Expedit. 84. Wellingtonia gigantea, Lindl. in Gard. 

 Chron. 1853, s. 819 and 823. Sequoia Wellingtonia, Seem, in 

 Bonpl. 1855, iii. 27. Washingtonia californica, Winsl. in Californ. 

 Farm. 1854. Taxodium Washingtonianum, Winsl. I.e. 



If a6itaf. — California, western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, from 

 Placer County (Calaveras Grove), south to Deer Creek on the southern 

 borders of Tulare County. 



The largest tree of the American forest, 250-400 feet in 

 height, with a trunk 20-40 feet in diameter ; valleys and moist 

 swales or hollows, between 4,000 and 6,000 feet elevation ; 

 growing in small, isolated groves, except towards its southern 

 limits, where it is mixed with the Sugar Pine and red and 

 white Firs, covering large tracts, often several hundred acres in 

 extent. 



Wood very light, soft, weak, brittle, rather coarse-grained, 

 compact, remarkably durable in contact with the soil ; bands of small 

 summer cells thin, dark-coloured, conspicuous ; medullary rays 

 numerous, thin ; colour bright clear red, turning much darker with 

 exposure, the thin sapwood white ; specific gravity, 0*2882 ; ash, 0"50 ; 

 formerly manufactured into lumber, and locally used for fencing, 

 shingles, construction, &c. (C. S. Sargent). 



No known timber is so excessively light, soft, and brittle ; its 

 bark is tough, spongy, and stringy in texture, and seems to be largely 

 charged with a crimson-coloured matter, exuding and hardening into 

 a substance like gum. It is a form of tannin, and the Wellingtonia 

 may thus supply a substitute for Oak bark (Lawson, ' ' Pinetum 

 Britannicum," Sequoia Wellingtonia, p. 13). 



Sequoia gigantea, a writer in Blackwood's Magazine says, was 

 first discovered in 1850 by a Mr. Dowd, who, when out hunt- 



