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8ILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



CONIFERS. 



nearly a quarter of an inch wide, and obliquely rounded at the apex ; the cotyledons being from nine 



to twelve in number.^ 



Pseudotsuga macrocarpa is a characteristic feature of the scanty forests which cover the lower 

 western and southern slopes of the arid mountains of southern CaUforniaj where it grows above the 

 banks of streams and on the steep slopes of narrow ravines usually between elevations of from three 

 thousand to five thousand feet above the sea, and occasionally on high ridges, frequently forming 

 open groves of considerable extent or mingling with Quercus chrysolepis^ Quercus WisUzeniy Pinus 



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Coidteriy Pinus attenuatay and Pinus ponderosa, var. JeffreyL The westerly station where Pseudo- 

 tsiiga macrocarpa has been observed is on the Santa Inez Mountains in Santa Barbara County.^ 

 Farther to the eastward it is common on the San Emigdio Mountains and on the Sierra Pelona, the 



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San Gabriel, the Sierra Madre, the San Bernardino, the San Jacinto, and the Cuyamaca Mountains, 

 which form a nearly continuous range extending in the arc of a circle from the neighborhood of Santa 

 Barbara on the coast to the southern borders of the state. 



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The wood of Pseudotsuga macrocarpa is heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, and durable. It is 

 dark red, with broad bands of small summer cells, numerous obscure medullary rays, and pale nearly 

 white sapwood. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.4563, a cubic foot weighing 

 28.44 pounds. It is occasionally manufactured into lumber, and it is largely used for fuel. 



Pseudotsuga macrocarpa was discovered in 1858 by the expedition under command of Lieutenant 



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J. C. Ives, sent by the government of the United States to explore the Colorado Eiver of the West. 

 Although its seeds have been sent to Europe by collectors, Pseudotsuga macrocarpa does not appear 

 to have been successfully cultivated, although it might be expected to thrive in regions where the 

 summers are hot and dry and the winters mild with scanty rainfall.^ 



^ Pseudotsuga macrocarpa can be distinguished from the other 

 American species by its comparatively longer and more remotely 

 placed branches, by its sharply pointed peculiarly colored blue- 

 gray leaves, by its shorter and stouter winter-buds, and larger 

 cones, with thicker more concave cone-scales, comparatively shorter 



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bracts with short broad tips, and by its larger and fuller seeds, 

 which have a thicker and harder coat and are much darker on the 



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upper face. Intermediate forms are not known to exist between 

 the two species, whicH occupy different regions, Pseudotsuga mu' 

 cronata, having failed to reach the mountains of southwestern Cal- 

 ifornia, which are the only home of Pseudotsuga macrocarpa either 

 along the California coast ranges, the Sierra Nevada, or from the 

 Kocky Mountains across the Colorado Desert. 



2 A single tree of Pseudotsuga macrocarpa was found in June, 

 1898, by Dr. F. Franceschi in Mission Canon, above the Seven 

 Falls, at an elevation of about fifteen hundred feet above the sea 

 on the Santa Inez Mountains, about six miles from Santa Barbara. 



^ Like other trees of extremely arid regions, Pseudotsuga macro- 

 carpa probably always grows slowly. The log specimen in the 

 Jesup Collection of North American Woods in the American Mu- 

 seum of Natural History, New York, is twenty-eight and three 

 quarters inches in diameter inside the bark and three hundred and 

 thirty-six years old, with one and three eighths inches of sapwood 

 which shows sixty-six layers of annual growth. 



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EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 



Plate DCVIIL Pseudotsuga mackocarpa. 



1. A flowering branch, natural size. 



2. A staminate flower, enlarged. 



3. An anther, side view, enlarged. 



4. A pistillate flower, enlarged. 



6. A scale of a pistillate flower, upper side, with its bract and 

 ovules, enlarged. 



6. A fruiting branch, natural size. 



7. A cone-scale, upper side, with its seeds, natural size. 



8. A seed with its wing, natural size. 



9. Cross section of a leaf, magnified fifteen diameters. 



10. Winter-buds, natural size. 



