where it comes in as one of the principal plants to dominate the 

 vegetation until the young Douglas fir trees or other coniferous seed- 

 lings become large enough to replace them. The leafage and twigs 

 of red alder sprouts and saplings are grazed by cattle, sheep, and 

 goats, being rated fair or fairly good forage in some localities in the 

 Northwest. Game animals also make use of this browse, especially 

 in the winter. 



Sitka alder (A. sinua'ta, syns. A. sitchen's'is, A. vi'ridis sinua'tci), 

 perhaps more fittingly called thinleaf alder because of its thin, 

 delicate-textured leaves, is one of the most palatable of the native 

 alders, being classed as fair to good sheep browse in some parts of its 

 range. It is generally a slender shrub, usually from 4 to 6 feet high, 

 but occasionally develops into a tree from 20 to 40 feet tall, with a 

 trunk 7 to 8 inches in diameter. The leaves, though thin and mem- 

 branaceous, are rather large (3 to 6 inches long), green above and 

 pale green and lustrous below with sharply double-toothed edges. 

 The male catkins and immature fruiting cones of Sitka alder open 

 into full flower in the spring with or after the leaves, differing in this 

 respect from all other native species, which produce their flowers in 

 the winter or early spring before the leaves appear. The cones of 

 this species are borne on slender stalks which usually exceed the 

 length of the cones themselves. Sitka alder grows from sea level to 

 about timberline in thickets on wet slopes or along mountain streams, 

 both on the Pacific slope and inland, ranging from the borders of the 

 Arctic Circle in Alaska to Alberta, California, and Colorado. 



