82 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. conifers. 



resinous conspicuous bands of small summer cells, few small resin passages, and many obscure medullary 

 rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood of the California tree is 0.4771, a cubic foot 

 weighing 29.72 pounds. The wood of Finns ponderosa, var. Jeffreyi, is coarser-grained, usually very 

 resinous and light yellow, with pale yellow or nearly white and generally thinner sapwood. The 

 specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood of this form is 0.5206, a cubic foot weighing 32.44 pounds. 

 The wood of Pinus ponderosa, var. scopidorum, is coarser-grained, harder, more brittle and resinous, 

 with a specific gravity, when absolutely dry, of 0.4619, a cubic foot weighing 28.78 pounds. The wood 

 of Finns ponderosa, var. Mayriana, is soft, brittle, and light red-brown, with thick pale sapwood, and 

 contains broad dark bands of small very resinous summer cells, few resin passages, and obscure 

 medullary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.4970, a cubic foot weighing 30.96 

 pounds. The wood of Finns ponderosa and its numerous forms is largely manufactured into lumber 

 used for all sorts of construction, and is employed for railway ties, fencing, and fuel. 



Indians, when other food failed, stripped the bark from the trunks of Pinus ponderosa in early 

 spring, and ate the mucilaginous layer of forming wood, which they scraped from its inner surface. 1 



The first published allusion to Pinus ponderosa is in the journal of Lewis and Clark, who, in 

 ascending the Missouri River in September, 1804, at the outset of their transcontinental journey, found 

 the cones of this tree, brought down from the pineries of northwestern Nebraska, floating on White 

 River, and heard of the Pine forests on the Black Hills of Dakota. 2 It was not made known to science, 

 however, until 1826, when it was found near the Spokane River in May by David Douglas, 3 who 

 suggested its specific name, 4 and in the following year introduced it into European plantations. In 

 cultivation Pinus ponderosa has usually grown slowly, but its ability to adapt itself to the climate of 

 western and northern Europe is shown by the existence of a few fine specimens in European collections. 5 

 In the eastern United States specimens of this Pine from the Pacific coast have not usually succeeded, 

 and, although plants raised from seeds gathered in Colorado have proved hardy in the east, they grow 

 slowly, and usually succumb at the end of a few years to various fungal diseases. Trees of some of the 

 forms of the variety Jeffreyi are distinct and valuable park ornaments, thriving in central and northern 

 Europe, where they have already produced their cones, 6 and in our eastern states, where they grow 

 more rapidly and are less liable to disease than those of any of the other forms. 7 



Possessed of a constitution which enables it to endure great variations of climate and to flourish 

 on the well-watered slopes of the California mountains, on torrid lava beds, in the dry interior valleys 

 of the north and on the sun-baked mesas of the south, and to push out over the plains boldly, where no 

 other tree can exist, the advance guard of the Pacific forest, Pinus ponderosa is the most widely 

 distributed tree of western North America. Exceeded in size by the Sugar Pine of the Sierra Nevada, 

 it surpasses all its race in the majesty of its port and the splendor of its vitality ; and, an emblem of 

 strength, it appears as enduring as the rocks, above which it raises its noble shafts and stately crowns. 



1 " The Pine trees had heen stripped of their bark about the 4 Douglas, Companion Bot. Mag. ii. Ill, 141 (1836). 



same season, which our Indian woman says her countrymen do in 5 Fowler, Gard. Chron. 1872 (1326). — R. Hartig, Forst.-Nat. 



order to obtain the sap and the soft parts of the wood and bark for Zeit. i. 428. — J. G. Jack, Garden and Forest, vi. 14. 



food." (History of the Expedition under the Command of Lewis and 6 Fowler, I. «,. 1071. — R. Hartig, I. c. 429. — Hansen, Garden 



Clark, ed. Coues, ii. 424. — See, also, Newberry, Popular Science and Forest, v. 231. — Bolle, Garden and Forest, vii. 95. 



Monthly, xxx. 46 (Food and Fibre Plants of the North American In- i Probably the finest plants of Jeffrey's Pine in the eastern 



dians). — Sargent, Garden and Forest, x. 28. — Coville, Contrib. states are in Delaware Park in Buffalo, New York, where there are 



U. S. Nat. Herb. v. 89.) eight specimens, planted in 1871, varying in height from twenty- 



2 History of the Expedition under the Command of Lewis and Clark, five to thirty-seven feet, with stems varying in girth at one foot 

 I. c. i. 117, 119. (See Sargent, I. c. x. 28.) above the surface of the ground from one foot nine inches to three 



See n. 94. f ee t mne inches. 



