SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. ERICACE, 
124 
Narrows! southward through the coast region of Washington and Oregon, and through the California 
coast ranges to the Santa Lucia Mountains. It usually grows on high well-drained slopes in rich soil 
and attains its greatest size in the fog-swept coast region of northern California, where it 1s a common 
inhabitant of the Redwood forest;? farther north and south and on the dry eastern slopes of the 
California mountains it is much smaller, and in the region south of the Bay of San Francisco it is often 
shrubby in habit.’ 
The wood of Arbutus Menziesii is heavy, hard, strong, and close-grained ; it contains numerous 
conspicuous medullary rays, and is light brown shaded with red, with thin lighter colored sapwood 
composed of eight to twelve layers of annual growth. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood 
is 0.7052, a cubic foot weighing 43.95 pounds. It is inclined to check badly in drying, but is used for 
furniture, and largely for charcoal in the manufacture of gunpowder, for which purpose it 1s considered 
especially valuable. The bark is sometimes employed in tanning leather. 
Arbutus Menziesii was discovered near the mouth of the Columbia River late in the last century 
by Archibald Menzies,* the surgeon of Vancouver, on his voyage of discovery. Thirty years later it 
was introduced by David Douglas ® into the gardens of Europe, where it is occasionally cultivated, and 
where it has produced flowers and fruit.° 
Arbutus Menziesii is the noblest of all its race; no other inhabitant of the North American 
forests with persistent leaves and petalous flowers equals it in size; and among our evergreen trees only 
the great Magnolia of the southern Atlantic states, the Kalmia, and the Rhododendron, produce more 
beautiful blossoms. Its dark red bark and smooth red branches, its lustrous foliage, abundant white 
flowers, and ample clusters of brilliant fruit, make the California Madrona an object of remarkable 
beauty at all seasons of the year, and one of the most desirable trees for the decoration of the parks 
and gardens of temperate regions.’ 
1G. M. Dawson, Canadian Nat. n. ser. ix. 331.—Macoun, Cat.  enty-five in the other, and the trunk girts twenty-three feet at three 
Can. Pl. i. 294. 
2 Garden and Forest, iii. 515. 
8 The largest specimen of the Madrofia of which there are meas- 
urements stands on the slopes of Mt. Tamalpais, in the grounds of 
the reservoir of the town of San Rafael, in Marin County, Califor- 
nia. This remarkable tree is more than one hundred feet high; 
the branches cover a spread of ninety feet in one direction and sev- 
feet above the surface of the ground. (See Garden and Forest, v. 
146, f. 23.) 
4 See ii. 90. 
5 See ii. 94. 
6 Loudon, Arb. Brit. ii. 1122.— André, Rev. Hort. 1893, 149, f. 
53, 54. 
7 Kellogg, Forest Trees of California, 96. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 
Puate CCXXXI. Arsutrus MEnzissm. 
- Diagram of a flower. 
A flower, enlarged. 
An ovule, much magnified. 
OWONATEwWDHY 
ht pf 
HK 
. A seed, enlarged. 
bE pe 
QW bo 
. An embryo, much magnified. 
. A flowering branch, natural size. 
. Vertical section of a flower, enlarged. 
A stamen, side and front views, enlarged. 
A flower, the corolla removed, cut transversely through the ovary, enlarged. 
. A branch of a fruit-cluster, natural size. 
. Vertical section of a fruit, slightly enlarged. 
. Cross section of a fruit, slightly enlarged. 
. Vertical section of a seed, enlarged. 
