70 



The False Hemlocks 



the leaves fall away after six or eight years. The flowers appear in early spring 

 from buds formed the previous season, usually erect and surrounded by the thin, 

 large, shining, usually straw-colored bud-scales. The staminate flowers are in the 

 axils of the leaves mostly toward the ends of the twigs, oblong-cyHndric, sessile 

 or nearly so, and consist of many spirally arranged, short-stalked roundish anthers 

 which open obhquely, the connective terminating in a short tip. The pistillate 

 flowers are either terminal or sometimes also axillar}-, oblong, short-stalked, and 

 composed of many ovate blunt, thin, overlapping scales each bearing two ovules, 

 and the much longer, 2-lobed, sharp-pointed, irregularly toothed or cut bracts, 

 whose midrib projects into a long, slender point. The cones, which mature the 

 first season, are ovoid-oblong, sharply pointed at the end, and rounded at the 

 sHghtly narrowed base; they are drooping, on short, stout stalks, which are sur- 

 rounded by short linear sharp-pointed bracts; the persistent rounded scales are 

 concave and stiff, becoming smaller and sterile toward each end of the cone, and 

 when ripe and dry stand out at a wide angle to the axis; the bracts, which 

 extend beyond the scales, are two-lobed, and rather stiff, their long midrib pro- 

 truding into a long, stiff, sharp tip. Seeds, two in the depression at the base of 

 the scales, oblong-triangular; the papery wing is rather dark colored and soon 

 breaks away from the seed; cotyledons 6 to 12. 



The name, Pseudotsuga, appHed to this genus, is a unique combination of 

 Greek and Japanese, signifying False Hemlock. 



Cones 5 to 10 cm. long; bracts much exserted. i. P. miicronata. 



Cones 10 to 17 cm. long; bracts little exserted. 2. P. macrocarpa. 



I. DOUGLAS SPRUCE Pseudotsuga mucronata (Rafinesque) Sudworth 



Abies mucronata Rafinesque. Finns taxijolia Lambert, not Salisbury 



Pseudotsuga taxifolia (Lambert) Britten. Pseudotsuga Douglasii (Lindley) Carriere 



The Douglas spruce, also called Red fir, Douglas fir. Yellow fir. Spruce, Fir, 

 Oregon pine, Red pine, Puget Sound pine, and Douglas tree, is the most abundant 

 as well as the most widely distributed tree of western North America, occurring 

 from British Columbia southward to the mountains of Arizona and into Mexico, 

 eastwardly to Alberta, Colorado, and Texas at elevations up to 2700 meters. 

 Its area of greatest abundance and dimensions is near the coast at low altitudes 

 in Oregon and Washington, where it forms pure forests of great extent and reaches 

 its maximum height of 90 meters, with a trunk diameter of 4.5 meters. At very 

 high elevations it is sometimes reduced to a straggling shrub. 



The branches are crowded, slender, and provided with long, lateral branchlets, 

 pendulous below but erect above, forming a narrow cone from near the ground; 

 in forests its trunk is often branchless for one half of its height or more, leaving 

 a relatively small, narrow head. The bark of old trees is 2.5 to 3 dm. thick, deeply 

 fissured into large, wide, rounded ridges, which are covered with irregular flat 



