A feverish William Lobb, racing back to England in the autumn of 1853, knew he held the raw material of a legend.

© National Trust / Betsy Anderson

The seeds he cradled aboard ship carried an epic tale, dwarfed only by the mythic proportions of the tree that had produced them. Though a seasoned plant hunter for the Veitch Nurseries, he had seen nothing in his travels to prepare him for his first glimpse of the ‘big tree'.

A vegetable monster

It was during his third American expedition in 1852 that Lobb first heard of a shadowy grove of mammoth conifers, tucked in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada range. He was in San Francisco attending a meeting of the newly formed California Academy of Sciences when the Academy’s founder, Dr. Albert Kellogg, brought forth a local hunter whose pursuit of a grizzly bear had led him face to face with an entirely different sort of giant.

Stumbling out of the towering stand and regaining his party, the hunter was derided and even accused of drunkenness when he recounted his experience of the other-worldly forest. Luckily the scientific community proved more liberal-minded, and a hushed and reverential crowd greeted the specimen produced by Dr. Kellogg that fateful summer evening.

The spine-tingling story certainly filled Lobb with a burning desire to see the remarkable tree in its native habitat, but his hurried flight to the Sierra foothills was largely fuelled by mercenary concerns: he knew this ‘vegetable monster’ would trigger an equally enormous craze in British horticultural circles, and he was determined to provide Messrs. Veitch with the plant material needed to corner the market.

Reaching the grove in Calaveras County, he collected seed, shoots, and seedlings; in fewer than two years’ time these would give rise to thousands of saplings, snatched up by wealthy Victorians to adorn great British estates. The larger-than-life conifer, so symbolic of the vast American wilderness, suddenly became a status symbol, rising boldly from expensive and highly groomed landscapes an ocean away.

Back in California the fanfare was even more sensational. The gigantic trees so exclusive in Britain were presented as tourist attractions to the American public. The big tree, as they dubbed it, was vastly appealing to the masses flocking from far and wide to visit Calaveras Grove, sleep in its hotel, and waltz across its expansive tree stump turned dance floor.

Lobb reported that among the eighty to ninety trees in the stand, one recently felled specimen had measured 300 feet with a diameter of over 29 feet near its base. A section of this 3,000-year-old tree was displayed in San Francisco where its hollowed (and carpeted!) slice of trunk could comfortably accommodate either a piano with an audience of 40 or a group of 140 squirming children. Today’s tallest specimen measures an astounding 94.9 metres (311.4 feet) and can be seen at Kings Canyon National Park in California.

The race for recognition

© NTPL / Clive Boursnell

Like many celebrities the big tree’s rapid rise to fame was accompanied by a name change, though in this case the naming caused as much of an uproar as the tree’s discovery and came dangerously close to straining Anglo-American relations.

The stakes were high on both sides of the Atlantic, as Lobb knew that Dr. Kellogg only needed to complete his set of herbarium specimens to register the new species. Kellogg planned to name the tree the 'Washingtonia' in honour of America’s revered first President. Lobb knew this, and effectively stole Kellogg’s glory by returning to England with the required plant material before his rival could carry out his plans.

To add insult to injury, John Lindley of the Horticultural Society, who was assigned the task of naming the introduction, opted for the decidedly un-American 'Wellingtonia gigantea' to commemorate the lately deceased Duke of Wellington. This was understandably greeted with indignation (and worse) across the pond, sparking a passionate debate that would rage for years.

Ultimately tensions were calmed by the objective intrusion of science, and 'Sequoiadendron giganteum' was chosen to reflect the tree’s botanical link to the coastal or California redwood, 'Sequoia sempervirens'.

That we persist in affectionately—or stubbornly—calling it the Wellingtonia is a testament to its value as a living monument. The sequoiadendrons standing sentinel across our landscape celebrate Britain’s insatiable horticultural curiosity and rich legacy of botanical exploration. Even when glimpsed from the motorway, the peaked rugged crown of the big-tree raises echoes of the past.

Seen at close range in such gardens as Killerton, Sheffield Park, and Penrhyn Castle, magnificent examples of 'S. giganteum' remind us of the proud 19th-century landowners who also fell under their spell. Though mere youthful suggestions of the ancient groves traversed by Lobb, the 'Sequoiadendron' specimens protected by the National Trust are breathtaking reminders of the power and wonder of the natural world. May they captivate us for another 3,000 years.