are the conspicuous living representatives, our 
Sierra Giant bears much larger cones than 
any found in fossil remains. Without doubt 
it is the largest vegetable creation that ever 
towered above the surface of the earth. 
The tall, spire-shaped Coast Redwood need 
never be confounded with the Cedar and 
Cypress of the region, for they have only 
little pointed scales for leaves, while the Red¬ 
wood has distinct, linear leaves, one-half to 
an inch long, and arranged in two ranks along 
the branchlet. The broad-crowned Sierra 
Giant, or Washington Tree, having small, 
scale-like leaves, is sometimes mistaken for 
the Incense Cedar of the region, but the com¬ 
paratively large, oval cone, one and one-half 
to two and one-half inches long, distinguishes 
the Big Tree unmistakably. 
‘FASCICULARES 
THE PINE FAMILY —PINUS 
Next to the Redwoods in interest is the 
numerous family of pines comprising the 
most part of our forests. The genus called 
botanically Pinus comprises about eighty spe¬ 
cies all told, distributed over the North 
Temperate Zone on both hemispheres, but, to 
the surprise of most persons, quite unequally. 
Of the 80 species, only 20 are found in 
Eurasia, a vast region over 9,000 miles across, 
while three times as many species, 60, are in 
North America, only one-third as wide (3,000 
miles). Of these 60 American species, 25 are 
on the Pacific Slope north of Mexico, and 20 
of these are in California; that is, the little, 
narrow state of California has within its 
borders as many species of pine as there are 
in all the broad expanse of the Old World. 
And the same conditions prevail practically, 
in regard to most of the other forest trees; 
(22) 
