OCT., 1830.] 



SHASTA FIR ]iELT. 



37 



The upper eil^e of the Shasta fir belt meets the alpine hemlocks aud 

 white bark pines of the belt above; the lower edge the ponderosa pines, 

 incense cedars, Douglas spruce, and wiiite firs of the belt below. 

 The firs are easily distinguished by bark, branches, and cones. The 

 Shasta fir has very dark and relatively thin bark, regularly furrowed 

 so as to form 'plates' like those of the ponderosa pines, only smaller, 

 narrower, aud transversely cracked. The branches are irregular, droop 

 at first (from the weight of winter snow), and then curve up^vard, and 

 the branchlets are small and terete, and stand out with mathematical 

 precision ; the cones are huge, and their green, tongue-like, single-iwinted 

 bracts protrude far beyond the scales, as in the noble fir of the north- 

 ern Cascades. In young cones the bracts 

 stand out straight; in old cones they are 

 strongly defiexed. The Miiite fir {Abies 

 ion'iaua) has much thicker and grayer 

 bark, deeply furrowed at base and not 

 forming regular scales or plates; the 

 branches are more regular and more nearly 

 horizontal, the branchlets flatter, more 

 spreadiug, and lacking the mathematical 

 lines of the Shasta fir ; the cones are more 

 slender, and the tricuspidate bracts are 

 short, reaching less than half-way across 

 the scale. The cone-scale differences 

 are shown in the accompanying diagrams. 

 (See fig. 19.) The year 1808 was an 'off year' 

 for cones, but plenty of old scales were 

 found on the ground, and broken cones 

 were discovered in holes in logs, Avhere 

 they had been carried by pine squirrels. 



The Shasta fir forest is mainly pure, 

 but in places, particularly on the east 

 and northeast sides of the mountain, silver pines are scattered through 

 it, and in one place along its lower border (between Ash aud Incon- 

 stauce creeks) the firs are replaced by lodge-pole pines, the only ones 

 on the mountain. 



Whether or not Abies ma(/nijica occurs on Shasta is a question on 

 which we can throw no light. I do not know how to tell magnifica 

 from shastensis except by the cones, and the trees did not bear cones the 

 year of our visit.^ Still, we found great numbers of old cones tucked 

 away by the squirrels in decayed logs, and disconnected scales under 

 most of the trees where search was made, and among all these failed to 

 find a single bract which was not strongly exserted. And yet Miss 



' While this paper was passing through the press (July, 1899), Walter K. Fisher 

 revisited Shasta. He found the lirs heavily laden with cones, and although thou- 

 sands of trees were examined he failed to liud a single cone without the exserted 

 bracts. 



Fig. 19. — Cone scales of (a) Abies shas- 

 tensig and (b) Abies cnncolorloiviana. 



