How to Tell the Trees 



No. i. THE CONE-BEARING FAMILY 

 - CONIFERS 

 By J. G. Lemmon 



Common trees throughout the earth are rec- 

 ognized by certain prominent characters 

 mostly, those of leaf and fruit. We know the 

 oak at sight, by its usually large leaves, and 

 especially by its peculiar fruit the acorn. 

 We know the poplar by its heart-shaped leaf 

 and cotton-bearing seeds, the maple with its 

 large-toothed leaves and double-winged seeds, 

 the ash with its pinnate leaves and single- 

 oared seeds. 



We Californians have learned to tell at a 

 glance, the wonderful Madrona by its mag- 

 nolia-like leaves, its red berries, and partic- 

 ularly, its naked, red limbs. The clean, white- 

 barked Sycamore with its great palmate leaves 

 and its hanging strings of button-balls, is at 

 once detected, and the spicy-leaved California 

 Laurel with its large bright-green berries. 



All these and many more large-leaved, usu- 

 ally low-land trees are well known; but they 

 do not compose the mass of our forests ; they 

 do not cover our coast ranges nor our lofty 

 Sierra Nevada. They do but little of the 

 work of sponging the moisture out of the 

 overrunning ocean winds and distilling it in 

 rain or showering it in snow upon the moun- 



(17) 



