BOTANY. 55 



Description. — A tree of very large size ; leaves narrowly linear, one inch long, furrowed above, 

 carinated below, with inflexed margin, slightly glaucous beneath; cones pendulous, long-ovate 

 acute, scales few, large, lax, rounded entire ; bracts elongated, strap-sbaped, projecting 

 beyond the margin of the scale, terminating in three points, of which the middle one is largest; 

 seed elliptical, acute, nearly half the length of the wing ; wing pellucid, margins entire. 



This was one of the first, and is now one of the best, known of the trees of the west. From 

 its magnitude and abundance on the Columbia, it was the first to attract the attention of the 

 botanists who have visited Oregon, and was early introduced into England, where it is now 

 extensively cultivated. Full descriptions have been given of it by Douglas, Lindley, Loudon, 

 Nuttall, &c, which are, in the main, accurate. Sabine was in error, however, in supposing 

 that the cones were erect, as in all the species they are pendant. Nuttall also represents the 

 bracts as reflexed. They are not so, however, but always project towards the point of the cone. 

 The figure given by Nuttall does not well represent the cones in any stage, as will be seen by 

 comparing that figure with the one now given, which was taken from a perfect specimen, of 

 which I brought a large number. 



The size of A. Douglasii has not been over stated. It is, in fact, one of the grandest of the 

 group of giants which combine to form the forests of the far west. I saw several individuals 

 of this species which had a diameter of ten feet four feet from the ground, and an altitude of three 

 hundred. As it usually grows in its favorite habitat, about the mouth of the Willamette, it forms 

 forests of which the density can hardly be appreciated without being seen. The trees stand rela- 

 tively as near each other, and the trunks are as tall and slender, as the canes in a cane-brake. 

 In this case the foliage is confined to a tuft at the top of the tree, the trunk forming a cylindrical 

 column as straight as an arrow, and almost without branches, for two hundred feet. The 

 amount of timber on an acre of this forest very much exceeds that on a similar area in the 

 tropics, or in any part of the world I have visited. Were it not that vegetable tissue will 

 burn readily, the immense mass of it which encumbers the surface of an ordinary farm on the 

 banks of the Columbia, would bid defiance to any efforts that one man could make for its re- 

 moval during the term of his natural life. 



To show how slender Douglas spruce ordinarily grows, I will give the measurements of a 

 tree, which seemed of only moderate size, lying near one of our camps in the Willamette valley. 

 It was six feet in diameter across the stump. Two hundred and sixteen feet of the trunk lay 

 upon the ground, and the upper extremity was fifteen inches in diameter where it had been 

 burned off. 



The wood, like that of most of the spruces, is harder and less pleasant to work than that of 

 the pines. It is, however, very stiff, makes excellent planking, joist, and timber, and for 

 these purposes it is very largely used both in Oregon and California. The rings of annual 

 growth are distinct and widely separated, and the tree is evidently of rapid growth. Douglas 

 spruce covers the western slope of the Cascade mountains and the banks of the Columbia. It 

 extends northward on the Sierra Nevada to the north line of Mexico. 



