NOTES ON WEST AMERICAN CONIFKR/E. — VII. 23 



under the uanie of Abies vmcronata, antedated Lambert's last 

 name, Pinus Douglasii, by five years, and Lindley's better one, 

 Abies Douglasii, by one year. Mr. Siidvvorth, therefore, in 

 determining the Conifers: of Mr. Holzinger's collection, renamed 

 the species Pseudotsuga inucro7iata. 



Througli tlie kindness of Professor (Ireene I have been provided 

 with a copy of the original description by Rafinesque, in the Atlantic 

 Journal, 1832, p. 120. 



"the DOUGLASS FIR. 



"5. Abies mucronata, R. (Fifth Fir, L. C), bark scaly, 

 branches virgate, leaves scattered, very narrow, rigid, and oblique, 

 sulcate above, pale beneath. Cones ovate acute, scales rounded 

 nervose-mucronate. 



"Rises 150 feet, leaves sub-balsamic, one inch long, is'^th wide, 

 cones very large, two and a half inches long. 



"Var. palustris. Grows in swamps, only thirty feet high and with 

 spreading branches." 



"It is interesting," Professor Greene remarks, "to see that Rafi- 

 nesque, even, seems to have known the swamp Pseudotsuga^ and to 

 have given it a name as a variety." Only a few persons have 

 reported any knowledge of this variety. It is said to be found in 

 the vicinity of the lower Columbia River, and that its wood is soft 

 and brittle, greatly unlike the tough timber of the typical Douglas 

 Spruce, y-y' 



Rafinesque's description of tliis Feather-coned Spruce, though 

 meager and disjointed, is mainly correct, the principal exception 

 being in the application of the very term "nervose-mucronate," upon 

 whicli he bases his name. This term does not apply to the rounded 

 cone-scales but to the long, acerose midrib of the bi-lobed cone-bracts 

 protruding from between the scales; a character which Lambert 

 seized upon in 1837, when he gave to this tree the English name of 

 "Trident-bracted Fir." 



Somewhat extended descriptions, with plates, of this interesting 

 Kpecies are given in the Forestry Report and the Handbook already 

 cited, and further particulars will be found in the first of this series 

 of articles, in Erythea, i, 48-52, 1893. In the paper last cited I 

 described two marked forms, subcrosa and clonQ-ata, as new varieties 



