BOTANY. 



97 



The Californian white cedar {Lihocedwus decnrrens) grows 

 one hundred feet high, and seven feet thick in the trunk. It 

 is found from Mount Shasta to the Tejon Pass. The trunk is 

 usually angular. Many of the trees are affected with a dry-rot 

 which destroys their value as timber. 



The fragrant-cedar (Ciq^ressus fragrcms) is found along the 

 northern coast of the state. It is a large tree, and produces a 

 white, clear lumber, valuable for furniture and the inside work 

 of houses. The wood has a strong, lasting, and not unpleas- 

 ant odor, half way between turpentine and ottar of roses. 



Lawson's cedar {Cupressus lawsoniana) is a tree of little 



value. 



The arbor-vitai, also called cedar (Thuja giganted), is a most 

 symmetrical and graceful conifer, growing to be nearly three 

 hundred feet high. 



§ 71. Yew and N'utmeg.—Thii Western yew is an upright 

 tree, from fifty to seventy-five high, with thin and light foli- 

 age, the leaves being about an inch long. Its growth is 

 straighter, its branches fewer, and its foliage thinner, more 

 feathery, and fighter in color, than the European yew. It 

 grows on the Sierra Nevada from 34° northward to British 

 Columbia. 



The coast cypress ( Cupressus macro-carpus) is found only 

 on Cedar Point, at Monterey, and there are not more than one 

 hundred trees of it there. The foHage is very dense. 



The Cafifornian n aiiie. {Tor re'i a calif arnica) is a graceful 

 and beautiful evergreen found in the Coast Mountains near the 

 bay of San Francisco. It grows from fifty to seventy-five feet 

 high, and resembles the Western yew in foliage and general 

 form". The fruit is hke a nutmeg in size and shape, but it has 

 a disagreeable terebinthine taste, and is never used as a condi- 

 ment. 



§ 72. Laurel— "Th^ Californian laurel, or bay ( Oreodaphne 

 calif ornica), is one of the most common and beautiful trees of 

 the coast valleys. It is an evergreen, which grows to a height 

 of fifty feet, with a trunk sometimes thirty inches in diameter. 



