54 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



and nearly twice as large as the lateral buds. Bark on young trees smooth, thin, rather 

 lustrous, dark gray-brown, usually becoming on old trunks 10'-12' thick, and divided 

 into oblong plates broken into great broad rouuded and irregularly connected ridges 

 separating on the surface into small thick closely appressed dark red-brown scales. 

 Wood light red or yellow, with nearly white sap wood ; very variable in density, 

 quality, and in the thickness of the sap wood; largely manufactured into lumber in 

 British Columbia, western Washington and Oregon, and used for all kinds of con- 

 struction, fuel, railway-ties, and piles. The bark is sometimes used in tanning 

 leather. 



Distribution. From about latitude 55 north in the Rocky Mountains and from the 

 head of the Skeena River in the coast range, southward through all the Rocky Moun- 

 tain system to the mountains of western Texas, southern New Mexico and Arizona, 

 and of northern Mexico, and from the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains to 

 the Pacific coast, but absent from the arid mountains in the great basin between the 

 Wahsatch and the Sierra Nevada ranges; most abundant and of its largest size near 

 the sea-level in the coast region of southern British Columbia and of Washington 



and Oregon, and on the western foothills of the Cascade Mountains; ascending on 

 the California Sierras to elevations of 5500 above the sea. 



Often planted for timber and ornament in temperate Europe, and for ornament in 

 the eastern and northern states, where only the form from the interior of the con- 

 tinent flourishes. 



2. Pseudotsuga maorocarpa, Mayr. Hemlock. 



Leaves acute or acuminate, terminating in slender rigid callous tips, apparently 

 2-ranked by the conspicuous twist at their base, incurved above the middle, j-l\' 

 long, about ^Ig' wide, dark bluish gray. Flowers : staminate pale yellow, inclosed 

 for half their length in conspicuous involucres of the lustrous bud-scales; pistillate 

 with pale green bracts tinged with red. Fruit produced on the upper branches and 

 occasionally on those down to the middle of the tree, short-stalked, 4'-6y long, with 

 scales near the middle of the cone l^'-2' across, stiff, thick, concave, rather broader 

 than long, rounded above, abruptly wedge-shaped at the base, puberulous on the 

 outer surface, often nearly as long as their comparatively short and narrow bracts 

 with broad midribs produced into short flattened flexible tips; seeds full and rounded 



