13* 



Forests and Trees 



FIG. 13. Amabalis Fir. 



but it must have been named by a woman. It is a lofty tree, 

 with a straight trunk sometimes more than two hundred feet 

 high, with a diameter of almost five feet 

 at the base. The bark is gray or brown, 

 thin and smooth on the younger trees and 

 covered with large blisters, but on the 

 largest and oldest trunks it is rough and 

 as much as two inches thick. The leaves 

 are flat and shining, dark green above but 

 white beneath. On the older branches 

 they are often an inch and a half long. 

 The cones are large, as much as six inches 

 long, dark purple and often indented at 

 the point. 



This magnificent tree is found in British 

 Columbia on the western slopes of the mountains facing the Pa- 

 cific Ocean, but it reaches its best development in the Olympic 

 Mountains in the State of Washington where it forms dense for- 

 ests. It is used for lumber, its wood being light brown, hard and 

 strong. The lumbermen frequently but 

 wrongly call it larch. 



4. LOWLAND FIR. Abies grandis. Lindley. 



This, too, is a large tree, even larger 

 than the preceding. It grows to a height 

 of almost three hundred feet, with a diam- 

 eter of from four to five feet. It may be 

 readily distinguished from the amabilis fir 

 by its longer and softer leaves, the color 

 of its cones and the character of the soil 

 where it grows. 



Its leaves are about two and a half inches long on the older 

 branches, green above and white beneath, and stand out almost 

 at right angles to the stem in two distinct rows on opposite 



FIG. 14. Lowland Fir. 



