16 BULLETIN UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA 



are roughened by these now leafless ridges though otherwise smooth and 

 are tan-colored. After the twigs are two years old they are covered by 

 resinous particles like warts and are dark-gray or brown. The outline 

 i>f the tree is linear-lanceolate and it appears sparsely branched with rela- 

 tively very short branches which are often clustered in bunches, mostly 

 alternately, and mostly drooping. Twigs either erect or pendulous. In 

 young trees especially the twigs are often several feet long and droop 

 like the weeping willow forming very beautiful and symmetrical trees. The 

 tree is much infested with mistletoe which produces great knobs from 

 which arise innumerable branchlets. Season's twigs about 2 mm. thick, 

 duU-reci, very slender, a few inches to a foot long as a rule, slightly pub- 

 escent, arising from the wart-like knobs of the previous year, except the 

 terminal twig which arises from the bud of the previous year, but even 

 it has at its base the rosette of secondary leaves which is 

 characteristic of the knobs and also has the knob there. The second 

 year the lateral buds of the first year produce rosettes of many leaves and 

 also thicken into warty knobs about 6.5-9 mm, long and wide which 

 persist in the stem indefinitely and give it its very knotty appearance. 

 The third year these knobs develop twigs from the center and a second 

 rosette of leaves at the base or produce sterile or fertile cones with a ro- 

 sette of leaves at their base, or often produce only another rosette of 

 leaves. The twigs of the season have the basal rosette leaves about 2 inches 

 long, 6.5 mm. wide and 3 mm. thick, they are obtusely 4-angled, needle- 

 like, but a trifle wider above and with a very short point at the rounded 

 tip. These leaves gradually pass into the primary leaves of the twigs 

 which are about 1 inch long above and nearly the same width throughout 

 and with a short and aculeate tip. These leaves are alternate, one in a 

 place, terminating a leaf-ridge which is exactly like hemlock (that is con- 

 vex on the back and chestnut-colored, ending in a truncate projection which 

 stands out its width above the end of its attachment where it is jointed 

 squarely to the leaf which is sessile and without a petiole, and is decid- 

 uous, this projection after a year or two being only a knob in the bark and 

 thus differing from the spruce). Therefore the larch and hemlock are the 

 nearest related, and both are closely related to the spruce. The cones 

 mostly fall when ripe but sometimes persist a year, especially when they 

 produce a rosette of leaves at the tip which occurs frequently. Rarely 

 they produce season's twigs from the tip and the upper and sometimes the 

 lower bracts are altered into leaves, but with the center of the cone still 

 seed bearing. The cones are 1-2 inches long, .75-1 inch wide, rounded at 

 both ends. The bracts are tridentate and with the central tooth variously 

 prolonged but the body of the bract is not exserted, bract red to purple at 

 least at base. Scales nearly oval, about 9 mm. wide, the tips recurved 

 a trifle and a little erose, about 13 mm. long. Wings of seeds half-ovate 

 and as long as the scales, very thin, rounded. The cones ripened on 

 Sept 1st, this season at Bigfork but at Coeur d'Alene Lake they were not 

 ripe two weeks later though the elevation was much less, they seem 

 to mature at once after frost. The bark of the older twigs is smooth and 

 drab-colored except for the darker areas representing the old leaf-ridges 

 which gradually widen and at last break into shallow cracks exposing the 

 reddish under bark and letting the bark flake up in one thick layer. With 

 age the bark gets rougher and more flaky and darker till the outer flakes 

 fall off and leave it reddish. On the main trunk the ibark is scaly and thin 

 above, but on old trees it cracks into large and flat areas 2 to 4 Inches 

 wide and 6 to 18 inches long, reddish. The old trees have conspicuously 

 brick-colored bark in great areas like the yellow pine but brighter. The 

 tree is often 200 feet high, straight, with trunk tapering but little, the out- 

 line is linear-lanceolate. The branches are so small that they do not leave 

 the wood knotty. The wood is rather reddish, soft, compact, finely grained 

 and straight and splits readily in thin flakes. This tree forms about half 



