182 Postelsia 
high, with scarcely tapering trunks two or three 
meters in diameter at the base. The bark of this 
tree, at first smooth and thin, becomes in old 
specimens, three decimeters thick and very 
deeply fissured, falling off in scales which often 
collect at the base of a large tree in a mound a 
meter or more high. ‘The foliage has the gen- 
eral appearance of that of a spruce, but the 
spray is more often somewhat flattened, and is 
much softer to the touch than that of the spruces. 
The leaves are short-petioled and flattened and, 
unlike the spruces and hemlocks, are persistent 
in drying. They are inserted on woody mounds 
of elliptical outline, which vary considerably in 
prominence in different specimens, so that some- 
times a twig from which the leaves are removed 
is as rough as in 7’suga, and sometimes as smooth 
asin Abies. The cones of the Douglas fir are 
very characteristic, like spruce cones in their 
general appearance, but more woody and mark- 
ed by the very long, exserted, three-pointed 
bracts. The cones fall from the trees soon after 
they have discharged their seeds. 
The Douglas fir is very abundant in Van- 
