SEQUOIA WELLINGTON I A. 
5 
appears an inevitable corollary that, if these, which have many salient points of distinction, should be 
merged together, a fortiori , Wellingtonia and Sequoia , which have almost none, should be united too. 
It is unnecessary to say that the converse of the proposition does not hold: it is no reason that, 
because species differing little from each other should be classed together, those differing much should be 
so too. 
At the early stage of the controversy (if it can be called so), we had adopted the views entertained by 
Dr Lindley. We had then seen the living plants only in their normal form, large, full-grown cones of the 
Wellingtonia, small stunted cones of Sequoia semftervirens, and no male flowers of the former. We consid¬ 
ered the very marked apparent difference in the foliage to be sufficient, along with the difference in the 
cones, to constitute a distindt genus. We have now, with better material, come to a different conclusion. 
The materials which have convinced us that Wellingtonia gigantea belongs to the same genus as Sequoia 
semftervirens are, first, the male flowers. It is only now in the present season (1866) that we have at last 
seen them. Doubtless, specimens must have been procured by botanists from the aboriginal trees them¬ 
selves in the course of the last ten or fifteen years, during which they have been known to men of science, 
and been objects of interest and constantly visited; but we never happen to have seen any; nor have we 
met with any description or figure of them. Indeed, we believe that the figures which we now give of 
them are the first which have been published. There were none in the British Museum or at Kew. At 
Kew, indeed, there was a tantalising specimen which had possessed a few male flowers; but they are very 
decadent, and the flowers of the specimen in question had all fallen off, leaving nothing but the stalk on 
which they had once grown. It was, therefore, with eagerness that we watched the young plants in this 
country when they began to shew symptoms of bearing fruit It is now two or three years since cones were 
observed; but until 1866 no male flowers made their appearance. The first observer who drew attention 
to them was Mr Andrew Gilchrist, forester, Tilliechewan Castle, Dumbartonshire; and the next, Mr Cox, 
gardener to Mr Wells of Red Leaf, who exhibited fine specimens both of cones and flowers to the Royal 
Horticultural Society ; but almost immediately afterwards, other notices of their occurrence appeared, and 
we received specimens from various quarters. On an examination of these, it is plain that they are in all 
respedls identical in strudlure and form with those of Sequoia 
semftervirens. Lig. 27 shews the catkin of the Wellingtonia of 
the natural size, and fig. 28 that of the S. semftervirens; and 
figs. 29 a b c the scales of the Wellingtonia , and 30 a b c those 
of the semftervirens , in different positions. Lrom these it will be 
1 
seen that there is little difference except in size; the catkins of 
semftervirens being merely a little larger than the other: the flowers in this respedt 
reversing the charadter of the cones, which are larger in Wellingtonia. The scales 
are, however, largest in Wellingtonia , and less jagged at the edges; the anthers, on 
the other hand, are largest in S. semftervirens. The only thing approaching a 
strudtural difference is, that in those which we have examined the anthers in Wellingtonia were borne 
inside the scale, while in S. semftervirens they were turned backwards and borne on the back; but both 
proceed from the free under-margin of the scale, and we have no doubt that this apparent difference in 
position is due to the different age of the specimens, and that when Wellingtonia is farther advanced its 
anthers will be turned farther back too. So far, therefore, as regards the male flowers, it is impossible to 
ground any separation upon them. 
The next material which convinced us of their generic identity is a most instrudtive specimen in the 
British Museum, obtained from Mr Bridges, the Californian collector. This is a good-sized herbarium 
specimen of a branchlet, of which we give a coloured plate, and on a- hasty glance it might at once be set 
down as a specimen of Wellingtonia. Except at the tips of the young branchlets, the whole of the 
leaves are imbricated, and of the same shape and size as those of Wellingtonia. It bears several cones, 
which are a little larger than those which trees of the Sequoia semftervirens bear in this country, and every 
[ 20 ] , c bit 
Fig. 29 a. Fig. 29 b. Fig. 29 c. 
Male Flower of S. Wellingtonia. 
Fig. 27. 
S. Wellingtonia. 
Fig. 28. 
S. semftervire7is. 
Fig. 30 a. Fig. 30 b. Fig. 30 c. 
Male Flower of S. semftervirens. 
