The Vegetation of Burns. LIQ 
trees to slight fires, prevent a renewal of original forest growth. 
In the high, mountainous portions of these regions, the forest con- 
tains much hemlock or spruce and small trees of Douglas fir— 
trees easily killed by the fires which readily ascend the steep slopes. 
These mountainous regions, excepting where the soil deprived of 
the protection afforded by vegetation may have been washed away 
by rains, are more certain to be covered with a new tree growth 
than regions of less altitude, but the new growth is not always at 
first that of the original forest. Fire usually seems to destroy, in 
the mountain regions, the seeds of conifers, for certainly seedlings 
do not appear immediately upon the locality of a burned forest, but 
gradually the original growth is replaced under the shade and pro- 
tection of bushes, aspens, etc., but the ground of a forest cut by 
the axe soon produces young trees, unless, as so often happens, fires 
burn the debris left by the wood-chopper. 
The Coast Range of California, south from San Francisco, except- 
ing the redwood forests and occasional groups of other conifers, is not 
distinctively a forest region, but its hills and mountains are covered by 
a thick, almost impenetrable growth of Adenostoma fasciculata, com- 
monly called ‘‘ greasewood ” or ‘“‘ chamis,’’ manzanita, Garrya, oak, 
Ceanothus (California lilac), etc., which seems to be periodically 
destroyed by fire. Indeed, it is almost impossible to find a hill or 
mountain covered with bushes, even of great age, where some old 
charred ends of roots may not be seen, showing that at some pre- 
vious time they had suffered from fire. 
This year, on Mt. Tamalpais, near San Francisco, an extensive 
fire destroyed again the vegetation of part of the mountain slope, 
from which everything green had been burned several years ago, 
and to-day, in the burned district, not a single bush or plant can be 
found, excepting along the edge of the wagon-road; in the damp 
gulches and on the northern slopes. Last year a similar fire swept 
through the vegetation upon that part of the mountain known as 
Bolinas Ridge, destroying everything green, leaving the ground 
black and with only upright remnants of charred manzanita and oak 
to show where the larger bushes had grown. This year, during 
the early part of the season, this ground was green with a rank 
annual vegetation, composed mostly of species common in the 
neighborhood of San Francisco, all growing much larger and 
ranker than usual. The perennial plants and bushes are re-appear- 
