to 



NOTES ON WEST AMEEICAN CONIFERiE. 175 



does not penetrate. Crossing the interior valleys it is again 

 encountered on the slopes of the Cascade Mountains, at eleva- 

 tions of 3,000 to 4,000 feet, near Mounts Hood and Adams 

 (Lemmon, Johnson, Lloyd), and nearly as high in the vicinity 

 of Mount Tacoma (Yelm Prairie; Piper, Muir, Von Trump). 

 With this species of pine may be compared the Western 

 Yellow Pine, Pinus po7iderosa, Dough, and the Douglas 

 Spruce, Pseudofsuga taxifoUa, Britton, both having a wide 

 range and often found in company from British Co^lumbia to 

 Mexico and both takii 

 ditions and escape extinction. 



Varieties of Pinus contobta, Dougl. Early botanists 



included the sub-alpine " Tamarack Pine " of the Sierra and 

 Kocky Mountains with this normally coast species, and 

 such reference led to the misconception that P. coniorta has 

 very thin bark of a light color, whereas it everywhere has 

 comparatively thick bark and, near the sea, it attains a thick- 

 ness of two to three inches and is black and deeply rimose. 

 The Tamarack Pine, loving high wet valleys and stream- 

 banks, is usually a slim, tall tree, four to seven feet m diame- 

 ter, with exceedingly thin, scaly bark (resembling eastern 

 Larch), n6t more than one-sixteenth to one-fourth of an inch 

 thick on the largest trees. The heart-wood closely resembles 

 that of White Pino, soft and white or light yellow from which 

 the thin sap-wood differs but little in color. Added to all 

 these important particulars, the cones are ovate-elliptical, one 

 and one-half to two and one-half inches long, tardily dehis- 

 cent at maturity, and the leaves, in pairs, are much larger than 

 any variety of P. contorta, about two lines wide, and two to 

 three inches long. In P. Murrayana the'seeds are brown, un- 

 mottled, one and one-half to two lines long ; the wings are 

 translucent, five to eight lines long, widest a little below the 



middle. 



brown 



upper side with dark spots. They are ovate, one to one and 

 one-half lines long, wings nearly transparent, three and one- 



These points of 



to 



difference abundantly justify Prof. Balfour's judgment in 



