5G 



BOTANY. 



Abies Menziesii. (Plate IX.) Menzies' spruce. 

 A. Menziesii, Dougl. Mss. Lind. Penny Cyclop. 1, p. 9. 

 A. Menziesii. Loudon, Arboret, 4, p. 2321, fiq. 2332. 

 Pinus Menziesii. Lamb. Pinus 3, t. 19. 



Fig. 21. 

 Fig. 21. Cone, scales, seeds, leaves, and branch of A. Menziesii, natural size. 



Menzie's spruce, like that of Douglas, was long since collected by the English botanists who 

 visited the Columbia, and is already introduced into cultivation in Europe. 



It grows most abundantly and attains the largest size on the coast near the mouth of the 

 Columbia, forming there the greater part of the forest. 



It never attains dimensions so gigantic as those of A. Douglasii, but forms a tall and very 

 strict tree, of which the foliage is more rigid than that of any other American abies. The 

 leaves are so rigid and acute as sometimes to prick the skin like needles. The cones, where I 

 have seen them, never exhibit the appearance presented in Nuttall's figure, but are much more 

 slender, and with eroded bracts, as represented in the figure. 



Thuja gigantea. The great arbor vitae. 

 T. gigantea. Nutt. Sylv.p. 400, t. 



The western arbor vitas is undoubtedly the finest species of the genus. It resembles somewhat 

 the species so common about the great lakes, T. occidentalis, but is not only a much larger and 

 finer tree but the foliage is handsomer. 



It grows in the greatest abundance in most parts of Oregon ; within the range of my obser- 

 vation, much more abundantly and attaining the largest size near the coast ; though said by 

 Nuttall to grow in perfection on the Upper Columbia. The finest trees I saw of it are in the 

 vicinity of Port Orford. It there constitutes an important part of the forest, and attains a size 

 scarcely inferior to that of the sugar pine or Douglas' spruce. 



The foliage, from the regularity of the divisions of the minor branches, and from the accuracy 



