> 



CONIFER-a;. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA, 



135 



with Tsuga heterophyllay Pseudotsuga mucronata and Abies grandis, and above with Ahies 

 amahilis, Ahies lasiocarpa and Tsuga Mertensiana. On the eastern and northern slopes of the 

 Cascade Mountains it is less abundant and of smaller size. 



The wood of Ahies nohilis is light, hard, strong, and rather close-grained ; it is pale brown 

 streaked with red, with rather darker colored sapwood, and contains broad conspicuous dark-colored 

 resinous bands of small summer cells and thin obscure medullary rays. The specific gravity of the 

 absolutely dry wood is 0,4561, a cubic foot weighing 28.42 pounds. Occasionally manufactured into 

 lumber, it is used under the name of larch for the interior finish of buildings and for packing-cases. 



Ahies nohilis was discovered on the Cascade Mountains just south of the Columbia River, in 

 September, 1825, by David Douglas, on a day made memorable also by his discovery of Ahies 

 amahilis} 



■ n 



Sent by Douglas to England, Ahies nohilis at once became a popular ornament of European 

 parks, in which it has already grown to a large size and produced its beautiful cones in profusion.^ On 

 the Atlantic seaboard it has grown well in the middle states,^ and proved hardy in sheltered positions m 

 eastern Massachusetts, where, however, it gives little promise of growing to a large size or of displaying 

 much of the beauty and vigor which make this Fir-tree one of the stateliest and most splendid 

 inhabitants of the forests of the northwestern states. 



^ Donglas, Companion Bot. Mag. ii. 93. See, also, Sargent, 

 Gard. Chron. n. ser. xvi. 7. 



2 The specimen in the Pinetiim at Dropmore, near Windsor, in 

 England, planted where it now stands in 1837, was seventy-one 

 feet in height in 1893, with its lower branches still sweeping the 

 ground (J. G. Jack, Garden and Forest, vi. 14) ; and at Birr Castle, 

 King's County, Ireland, in 1891, there was a specimen eighty-three 



feet in height. (See Dunn, Jour. R. Hort. Sac. xiv. 86. For other 

 notes on Abies nohilis in Europe, see Hooker, Jour. Bot. and Kew 

 Gard. Misc. ix. 85. — Hutchinson, Trans. Highland and Agric. Soc. 

 ser. 4, xi. 24. — Gard. Chron. n. ser. xix. 14, f. 2; ser. 3, xx. 274, f. 

 52. — Webster, Trans. Scottish Arloricultural Soc. xi. 61.) 

 ® See Garden and Forest, vi. 458. 



