THE FORESTS OF OREGON 



The wild apple (Pyrus rivularis) is a fine, 

 hearty, handsome little tree that grows well hi 

 rich, cool soil along streams and on the edges of 

 beaver-meadows from California through Ore- 

 gon and Washington to southeastern Alaska. 

 In Oregon it forms dense, tangled thickets, 

 some of them almost impenetrable. The largest 

 trunks are nearly a foot in diameter. When in 

 bloom it makes a fine show with its abundant 

 clusters of flowers, which are white and fra- 

 grant. The fruit is very small and savagely 

 acid. It is wholesome, however, and is eaten by 

 birds, bears, Indians, and many other adven- 

 turers, great and small. 



Passing from beneath the shadows of the 

 woods where the trees grow close and high, 

 we step into charming wild gardens full of 

 lilies, orchids, heath worts, roses, etc., with 

 colors so gay and forming such sumptuous 

 masses of bloom, they make the gardens of 

 civilization, however lovingly cared for, seem 

 pathetic and silly. Around the great fire- 

 mountains, above the forests and beneath the 

 snow, there is a flowery zone of marvelous 

 beauty planted with anemones, erythroniums, 

 daisies, bryanthus, kalmia, vaccinium, cassiope, 

 saxifrages, etc., forming one continuous gar- 

 den fifty or sixty miles hi circumference, and 

 so deep and luxuriant and closely woven it 



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