Sequoia gigantea — St. John AND KrAUSS 
Hooker’s Journal of Botany and Kew Garden 
Miscellany (7: 29, 1855); and this reprint was 
reprinted in the Gardeners Chronicle and 
Agricultural Gazette (1: 7-8; 1855, January 
6). In both of these, the significant phrase 
appears as, "If the 'Big Tree’ be a Taxodium, 
let it be called . . . Taxodium Washington- 
iumG Thus, the editors had altered the quoted 
passage, removing the negative that was in 
the original by Winslow, viz: "If the 'Big 
Tree’ be not [italics ours] a Taxodium, let it 
be called now and forever Taxodium Washing- 
tonium!' Winslow wrote well-phrased and 
grammatical English, so there is little doubt 
but that if he had been allowed to proof-read 
his letter before publication he would have 
removed the "not" which made the sentence 
nonsensical. If he deemed the tree not to be 
a Taxodium, why would he coin a name for it 
in that genus? Two generations later, G. B. 
Sudworth revived this first name of Winslow’s, 
but he altered its spelling to Sequoia washing- 
toniana (Winslow) Sudw. (1897: 61-62). Here 
he made the new combination without ex- 
planation or discussion, but later (1898: 28- 
29; and 1927: 32-33) again used the name 
and here gave a lengthy explanation. He 
found the name valid under Article VI of the 
Rochester Code of Nomenclature, which he 
was following. That code is no longer used, 
but Sudworth ’s concluding paragraph con- 
cerning this article is worth quoting. 
In interpreting the fundamental object of 
this article cited for the publication of species 
and applying it to all cases likely to arise, it 
would seem the duty of the interpreter to 
abide by the principle involved in the law, 
and to be influenced rather by the actual mean- 
ing of the describer’s combined words than 
by his unfortunate lack of technical procedure 
in description. 
These check lists of tree names by Sud- 
worth were official for the United States For- 
est Service, so the names in it were used by the 
foresters, but Sequoia washingtoniana (Winslow 
emend. Sudw.) Sudw. was little used by bot- 
anists. It was, however, adopted by J. G. 
353 
Lemmon (1898: 171-172), former botanist of 
the California State Board of Forestry, and 
is currently used by Harlow and Harrar 
(1941: 193). 
To return to the two names published by 
Winslow, Taxodium W ashingtonium and Wash- 
ingtonia Californica, we note that he did not 
assert that the name Wellingtonia gigantea 
Lindl. was invalid. As an American he dis- 
liked having the American big tree named for 
a British general, consequently he deliberately 
renamed it. It was unknown to the layman 
Winslow that Findley’s generic name Wel- 
lingtonia happened to be illegitimate, being 
a later homonym of Wellingtonia Meisner pub- 
lished in 1840 for a member of the Sabiaceae. 
So, actually, the new generic name by Findley 
was invalid, and as a distinct genus the tree 
still needed a name, but what of the specific 
epithet gigantea given by Findley? The earlier 
Sequoia gigantea Endl. (1847) was based on a 
sterile specimen collected by David Douglas; 
on a published letter of Douglas’ referring 
apparently to the redwood; and on two ref- 
erences to Hooker and Arnott’s names in 
The Botany of Captain Beecheys Voyage, in part 
referring back to the same Douglas reference, 
in part to Abies religiosa, and in part to Abies 
bracteata. When Findley first published his 
W. gigantea, he introduced the subject by 
discussing the basis of Sequoia gigantea Endl. 
and eliminating it (1853^.' 819). Findley then 
briefly described a specimen of the big tree 
sent by Lobb from the Sierra Nivada [Nevada] 
of California. He named it Wellingtonia gigan- 
tea. It is perfectly clear from the previous 
context that the specific epithet used here, 
gigantea, was new, not one transferred from 
the confused and illegitimate Sequoia gigantea 
Endl. In consequence, the specific epithet 
gigantea, published in 1855 by Findley, was 
legitimate, the first such one for the tree in 
question. So, when Winslow cited Findley’s 
binomial, the real basis of his concept, he had 
no right to reject Findley’s specific epithet 
gigantea. It has priority over the specific epi- 
thets of both the binomials proposed by 
