264 PLANTS AND MAN 



region, where it occurs as a fair sized tree associated with other 

 species. The former species is one of wide range, being found at 

 higher elevations in the Rockies from Canada southward almost 

 to Mexico, and in the Cascade Mountains through Washington 

 and Oregon. It is a large tree, reaching a size of one hundred and 

 fifty feet on the better soils, found growing in extensive pure 

 stands or in company with other coniferous trees. 



Douglas Fir 



The Douglas fir (Fseudotsuga) is neither a true fir, as its 

 present common name would seem to indicate, nor a spruce as 

 its former common name of Douglas spruce might indicate. It has 

 sharp or blunt pointed, stalked leaves much like those of the 



Fig. 185. — Douglas fir has needle-like leaves much like the spruces, but 

 somewhat flattened and borne on minute projections on the stem. 



spruces, but somewhat flattened and borne on minute projections 

 of the stem (fig. 185). The cones hang from the branches, and 

 possess three-pronged bracts which extend conspicuously beyond 

 the cone scales. 



Douglas fir, which by itself makes up almost 32% of the tim- 

 ber stand of the United States, rivals ponderosa pine in its wide- 

 spread distribution, ranging throughout most of the Rocky 

 Mountains from Mexico to Canada, and in all three of the 

 Pacific coast states, where it reaches its maximum development. 

 In fact, it exhibits such difference of form in its Rocky Mountain 

 and Pacific Coast habitats that some consider the two forms as 

 different species. 



It is rightly called "monarch of the Pacific Northwest 

 forests," since in this region trees not uncommonly measure three 

 hundred feet in height and eight to ten feet in diameter. The 



