CONIFERJE. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



91 



Pseudotsuga Tnucronata was discovered in 1791 on the shores of Nootta Sound by Archibald 

 Menzies, the surgeon of Vancouver in his voyage of discovery ; it was first described in the journal 

 of Lewis and Clark.^ Rediscovered by David Douglas in 1827, it was introduced by him into the 

 gardens of Europe, where it has become one of the best known and most valuable coniferous trees for 

 park plantations.^ European sylviculturists have made numerous experiments with the Douglas Spruce 

 in forest planting, but they are still divided in their opinions as to its value for this purpose.^ Early 

 attempts to introduce it into the eastern United States by means of plants obtained in England and 

 raised from seeds gathered in Oregon or from trees which had grown in Europe were generally unsuc- 

 cessful, the young plants soon succumbing to the heat and dryness of the eastern summers or to the 

 cold of eastern winters. But in 1862 Dr. C. C. Parry found the Douglas Spruce on the outer ranges 

 of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and the following year sent seeds to the Botanic Garden of 

 Harvard College. The plants raised from these seeds have proved perfectly hardy and have grown 

 rapidly and vigorously in the neighborhood of Boston, and now give promise of surpassing all other 

 exotic conifers in permanent beauty and usefulness 5 and in recent years the Douglas Spruce, raised 

 from seeds gathered at high altitudes in Colorado, has been planted in considerable numbers in the 

 northern states.* Of the numerous abnormal forms of Pseudotsuga miccronata which may be occa- 

 sionally seen in European gardens and which are peculiar in the marking of their leaves or in their 

 habit, none has any great permanent value.^ More beautiful are the plants from Colorado and from the 

 mountains of Mexico with blue and glaucous foliage.® 



One of the most widely distributed trees of North America, the Douglas Spruce possesses a 

 constitution which enables it to flourish through thirty-two degrees of latitude, to support the fierce 

 gales and the long winters of the north and the nearly perpetual sunshine of the Mexican Cordilleras, 

 to thrive in the rain and fog which sweep almost continuously from the Pacific over its lofty heads, 

 and on arid mountain slopes In the interior, where for months of every year rain never falls. It is 

 one of the most important elements of the American forest. No other American tree of the first 

 agnitude is so widely distributed or can now afford so much timber, and the rapidity of its growth 



Combustion of the Tannin. 



Carbon . . 61.72 per cent. 



Hydrogen 5.73 " 



Oxygen 32.55 « 



100.00 



The amount of tannin, 15.25 per cent., in air dry material is 

 higher than is usually found in other tan-barks. 



^ The History of the Expedition under Command of Lewis and 

 Clark, ed. Coues, iii. 831. 



2 A Douglas Spruce, raised from one of the seeds sent to England 

 by David Douglas iu 1827 and planted in 1830 where it now stands 

 in the Piuetum at Dropniore, near Windsor, iu 1893, was one hun- 

 dred and twenty feet high, with a trunk four feet in diameter and 

 long lower branches sweeping the ground. For sixty years, there- 

 fore, this tree has made an annual average upward growth of two 

 feet and has added annually four fifths of an inch to the diameter 

 of its trunk. Its upward growth has, indeed, really been greater, 

 as part of the head was blown off several years ago in a winter 

 storm. (See J. G-. Jack, Garden and Forest, vi. 14. See, also, 

 Fowler, Gard. Chron. 1872, 75 ; Card. Chron. 1872, 1323, f. 299.) 

 A Douglas Spruce in the Garden of Penrhyn Castle in Wales, 

 supposed to have been planted fifty-seven years before, had in 

 1887 a trunk which girted thirteen feet eight and one half inches 



three feet above the surface of the ground, and another specimen 

 on the same estate had a trunk eleven feet nine inches in circum- 

 ference. (See Webster, Gard. Chron. ser. 3, i. 672, f. 130. See, 

 also, Webster, I. c. n. ser. xxi. 59 ; Trans. Scottish Arhorlcultural 

 Soc. xi. 56, 165.) 



^ See John Booth, Die Douglas Fichte j Die Naturalisation Aus- 

 Idndisclier Waldbaume in Deutschland, 131; Zeitsch. Forst-Jagd. xxii. 

 32 {Die Naturalisation der Douglasfchte) ; GartenJlorUj xl. 595.^ 

 J. Brown, The Forester, ed. 5, 353, f. 123. — WiUkonim, Forst. Fl. 

 ed. 2, 104, t. 19, f. 13, 18. — Mayr, Wald. Nordam. 290, t. 4, 6, 8, 

 9. — K. Hartig, Forst.-nat. Zeit. i. 415. — Schlich, Gard. Chron, 

 ser. 3, iv. 531, 568, 598 ; Man. Forestry, ii. 316. — Kohler, Garten- 

 flora, xli. 114. — Duun, Jour. R. Hort. Soc. xiv. 80. 



* See Garden and Forest, iv. 190. 



^ For an account of the garden varieties of Pseudotsuga culti- 

 vated in Europe, see Carri^re, Traite Conif. ed. 2, 257. — Beissner, 

 Handb. Nadelh. 418. — Sudworth, Bull. No. 14, Div. Forestry U. S. 

 Dept. Agric. 47. < 



<* The form of Pseudotsuga mucronata with glaucous leaves, which 

 was introduced from Mexico into European gardens by Roezl 

 about forty years ago, is said to be a distinct and handsome plant. 

 This is the Pseudotsuga glaucescens, Bailly, Rev. Hort. 1895, 88, t., 

 and probably the Picea glaucescens, Gordon, Pinetum, Suppl. 47 

 (1862), and the Picea religiosa glaucescens, Gordon, Pinetum, ed. 2, 

 213 (1870). It is also the AUes religiosa glauscescens, Carri^re, 

 I c. 274. 



