BETULACE^ 



211 



racemes usually inclosed during the winter in buds formed during the early summer 

 and opening in the early spring, |^'-^' long, about -^^' thick, with dark red acute 

 scales; styles bright red. Fruit: strobiles raised on stout orange-colored peduncles 



sometimes ^' long, ovate or oblong, i'-l' long, i'-l' wide, with truncate scales much 

 thickened toward the apex ; nut orbicular to obovate, surrounded by a membrana- 



ceous wing. 



A tree, usually 40-50, occasionally 80 high, with a trunk sometimes 3^ in 

 diameter, slender somewhat pendulous branches forming a narrow pyramidal head, 

 and slender branchlets marked by minute scattered pale lenticels, light green and 

 coated at first with hoary tomentum sometimes persistent until their second year, 

 becoming during the first winter bright red and lustrous and ultimately ashy gray. 

 Winter-buds about ^' long, dark red, covered with pale scurfy pubescence. Bark 

 rarely more than 1' thick, close, roughened by minute wart-like excrescences, pale 

 gray or nearly white, with a thin outer layer, and bright red-brown inner bark. 

 Wood light, soft, brittle, not strong, close-grained, light brown tinged with red, 

 with thick nearly white sap wood; in Washington and Oregon largely used in the 

 manufacture of furniture; by the Indians of Alaska the trunks are hollowed into 

 canoes. 



Distribution. Southeastern Alaska southward, near the coast to the canons of 

 the Santa Inez Mountains, California; common along the banks of streams, and of 

 its largest size near the shores of Puget Sound. 



3. Alnus tenuifolia, Nutt. Alder. 



Leaves ovate-oblong, acute or acuminate, broad and rounded or cordate, or occa- 

 sionally abruptly narrowed and wedge-shaped at the base, usually acutely laciniately 

 lobed and doubly serrate, when they unfold light green often tinged with red, pilose 

 on the upper surface and coated on the lower with pale tomentum, at maturity thin 

 and firm, dark green and glabrous above, pale yellow-green and glabrous or puberu- 

 lous below, 2'^' long, l^'-2^' wide, with stout orange-colored midribs impressed on 

 the upper side and slender primary veins running to the points of the lobes; their 

 petioles stout, slightly grooved, orange-colored, ^'-V long; stipules ovate, acute, thin, 

 and scarious, ^' long, about ^' wide, covered with pale pubescence. Flowers: stami- 



