The Plant World 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF POPULAR BOTANY. 



Vol. 111. MAY, 1900. No. ?. 



THE DOUGLAS SPRUCE, PSEUDOTSUGA TAXIFOLIA. 



By Francis E. Lloyd. 



THE Facilic Coast Region is characterized by a great belt of timber 

 extending from Alaska to California. In this region, exclud- 

 ing a portion of California, the general humidity for the greater 

 part of the year is excessive. North of the tifty-iifth parallel this 

 humidity extends throughout the whole year. Between the fifty-fifth 

 and forty-second parallel only a few months of the summer season are 

 free from rain, while south of the forty-second parallel drier conditions 

 prevail, although the mountainous regions possess a climate more like 

 that of the remons farther north than do the lowlands. The eastern 

 boundary of this rain belt is found in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon 

 and Washington, and in the continuation of that range north and south. 



This rain belt is the home of a large number of genera and species 

 of magnificent cone- bearing trees, many of which are of great value 

 commercially, and all of which are of surpassing interest to the botanist. 

 Of the approximately sixty species here found, none is so important as 

 the lied Fir, or more properly, the Douglas Spruce. This is true 

 because of its general distril)ution from a little south of Alaska to 

 Mexico, the richness of. its "stand" and the very general usefulness of 

 its wood. It is the purpose of this paper to give some account of this 

 tree. , 



It was first discovered in 1791 on the shores of the Nootka Sound 

 by Archil)ald Menzies who was employed as surgeon on Vancouver's 

 voyage of discovery, and not, as has sometimes been stated, by David 

 Doufflas, who however, rediscovered the tree in. northern Oregon in 

 1S27. It was described originally under the name l^htu.t taxifoJui by 

 Laml)ert, whose account appeared in 1803 accompanied by a colored 



