Sequoia gigantea — St. John and Krauss 
was published in a column of current notes, 
without a real title to the article, but signed 
by Seemann, the editor of the journaL He 
referred to the article in which Winslow re- 
jected as distasteful the name Wellingtonia 
gigantea Lindl. for the big tree and proposed 
for it the provisional names Taxodium Wash- 
ingtonium and W ashingtonia Californica. See- 
mann rejected both of Winslow’s names as 
invalid. Then in a footnote he mentions ex- 
amining at Kew the specimens on which 
Wellingtonia was founded. He observed that 
they were identical with Sequoia sempervirens, 
saying,* ”Der Unterschied steht einzig und 
allein auf dem Papiere, nicht in der Natur.” 
Though boldly stated in this manner, his 
meaning was, apparently, that he found no 
generic distinctions between Wellingtonia and 
Sequoia. He pointed out that the specific epi- 
thet gigantea could not be transferred to Se- 
quoia, as it would there be a later homonym 
of S. gigantea Endl. He then proposed a new 
name for the big Sequoia Wellingtonia 
Seem. — and mentioned receiving satisfactory 
dried specimens of it from Herr F. Scheer. 
From the context, and from the fact that he 
was renaming Findley’s Wellingtonia gigantea, 
it is evident that Seemann’s new specific epi- 
thet was the generic name of Findley. Hence, 
Seemann wrote it, and it may still be written. 
Sequoia Wellingtonia, the specific epithet being 
capitalized. This binomial supplied the first 
legitimate specific epithet for the big tree in 
the genus Sequoia. Three years later Seemann 
published (1858) an extended account of his 
Sequoia Wellingtonia. It already had an exten- 
sive literature, and his brief references added 
up to half a column. For instance, in the year 
1856, there were in the Gardeners Chronicle 
references to the big tree in 14 different arti- 
cles. Seemann summarized these accounts, 
both the nontechnical accounts of the tree 
and the impressions of it by travelers. He 
referred to the publication by Findley of the 
big tree as a separate genus Wellingtonia gigan- 
tea and recounted how this was resented by 
many Americans as a national affront. An 
355 
American on the Atlantic coast renamed it 
Americas gigantea, while one on the Pacific 
coast renamed it Taxodium W ashingtonium or 
W ashingtonia Californica. Seemann had in 1855 
formed the opinion that the big tree was not 
genetically distinct from the redwood and had 
curtly rejected Findley’s genus Wellingtonia. 
Again, in this second account he kept to this 
view. He tabulated the synonomy of the two 
species. Sequoia sempervirens and Sequoia Wel- 
lingtonia, and for the latter recorded the ver- 
nacular names, "Mammoth-tree, Big-tree, 
Wellingtonie.’’ 
For Sequoia Wellingtonia, Seemann pub- 
lished a large, full-length engraving. He de- 
tailed the location of the several known 
groves. He gave the various estimated and 
recorded sizes of the trees and estimates of 
their ages. Then, finally (p. 353), he gave 
a methodical description of the big tree, its 
trunk, bark, wood, leaf forms, and briefly of 
the flowers and cones. This lengthy account 
in 1858 completed, but maintained un- 
changed, his concept of Sequoia Wellingtonia 
Seem, first published in 1855. 
For those botanists who refuse to recognize 
the big tree as a genus and insist on retaining 
it in the same genus as the redwood, the first 
legitimate name is Sequoia Wellingtonia Seem. 
(1855). This was adopted by Femmon (1898: 
171-172). A repressed choice for this classi- 
fication was indicated by Tittle (1944: 277) 
in his new check list of the trees of the United 
States. He said, "5. wellingtonia is the proper 
name since 1930 under the International Rules 
of Botanical Nomenclature. A majority of the 
botanists in California consulted prefer to 
continue the illegitimate name Sequoia gigan- 
tea, which is so well established in many pub- 
lications about these remarkable trees. In the 
interests of uniformity and of elimination of 
confusion in names, the name S. gigantea is 
here accepted by the Forest Service commit- 
tee, though my [Tittle’s] personal choice 
would be S. wellingtonia I' It seems that Tittle 
was overruled by the other five members of 
the committee which consisted of his senior 
