16 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



These explorations in a wilderness country, with 

 scarcely ever the sight of a white man's face, were 

 full of hardships; but though checkered with dis- 

 comforts both of heat and cold, of drenching rains 

 and a sun "as hot as Arabia," with accidents to his 

 specimens which were sometimes entirely lost in 

 crossing streams, and wounds to his own body as 

 he worked his way through pathless wastes and for- 

 ests, there was full compensation in the joy of con- 

 tinual discovery. Almost every day brought its 

 new species of herb, or shrub or tree. It is the 

 trees of California and Oregon that insure an im- 

 mortal fame to this intrepid Scotchman. He was 

 the discoverer, under very exciting circumstances 

 of the queen of California pines, Pinus Lamber- 

 tiana, the sugar pine. This tree bears within its 

 huge cones, large edible seeds, a few of which Doug- 

 las had caught sight of in an Indian's tobacco 

 pouch, and he could not rest until he had hunted 

 up the trees from which the seeds had come, for 

 he knew that they represented an undescribed 

 species. After many hardships he succeeded in 

 locating a number of the great trees in a forest, but 

 the cones, of which he was anxious to obtain speci- 

 mens for shipment to Europe, were suspended from 

 branches a hundred feet above the ground. To 

 reach these by climbing was impossible, as the trees 



