157 



NOTES ON WEST AMEEICAN CONIFEE^.— Y. 



By J. G. Lemmon. 



The Promontory Pines of Mendocino. 



Oar recent trip to Mendocino nnconsciousl}' assumed the 

 character of a pilgrimage to tlie spot where Professor 

 Bolander, of the California Geological Survey, made his first 



important discoveries in forest trees. 



I had visited the region in 1878, but the trip included calls 

 at many ports from Point Arena to Astoria, and I was then 

 engrossed in the collection of the minor plants, purposely 

 neglecting the trees — for Bolander had visited and studied 

 them before me. 



It was in 1866 that Bolander climbed the long sinuous 

 stairAvay, reaching from the beach, one hundred and forty 

 feet up to the level summit of the promontory fronting the 

 quaint New England town of Mendocino. He was confronted 

 with strange forms of trees. On the very bluffs were small, 

 low-browed pine-trees; behind them a forest of taller ones 

 becoming lofty, rugged trees with full heads and abundance 

 of persistent cones, mostly opened. 



Farther inland was another stranger little pine which 

 but let him tell his own story as published in the 

 Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, iii. 227, 

 under Finns mnincaicij Don. 



** Near Mendocino City on the so-called ' plains, ' I 

 found in great abundance a small pine tree which I 

 refer for the present to this species. Height, five to 

 twenty feet, but the greater number averaged only from 

 five to fifteen feet. Only one tree which I noticed [was 

 larger] which was fifty-five inches in circumference and 

 twenty to twenty-five feet in height. It had a flattish top 

 with the branches very much imbricated and so completely 

 covered with cones that it was really diflScult to discover its 

 foliage. 



Ebythea, Vol. II., No. 10, [1 October, 1894,] 



