DOUGLAS FIR: DOUGLAS SPRUCE: 



Pseudotsuga taxifolia 



THIS is one of the most important timber trees west of 

 the great Continental Divide. Only the Tideland Spruce, 

 the Big Tree, and the Redwood exceed it in size, and none 

 but the Western Yellow Pine (Pinus ponderosa) can sup- 

 ply so great an amount of first-class merchantable lumber. 

 While the tree is loaded with nearly a dozen local names, 

 the lumber trade has added to the confusion by giving sev- 

 eral different names to the lumber cut from it. One may pur- 

 chase in market Douglas Fir, Red Fir, Yellow Fir, Douglas 

 Spruce, Yellow Spruce, and Oregon Pine, and yet all may 

 be cut from the same identical tree. The author well re- 

 members how he was corrected in a Los Angeles planing- 

 mill when he called some lumber which a workman was put- 

 ting into a door Douglas Spruce, and was promptly told it 

 was Oregon Pine and the man really thought it was Pine. 

 It is not a Spruce, nor is it a Fir or a Pine, but it largely 

 partakes of the characteristics of a Hemlock, hence its bot- 

 anical name, Pseudotsuga^ which means False Hemlock. 

 Professor C. S. Sargent declares " Pseudotsuga is a barbar- 

 ous name," but for all that, it indicates its true character. 



Its natural range in the United States is from the Cana- 

 dian line south, through most of the mountain ranges, to 

 nearly, if not quite, the Mexican border, and from the east- 

 ern base of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, but 

 it is not found on the mountains of the arid region of the 

 Great Basin. Its best development is along the coast region 

 of Washington and Oregon near the level of the sea, and 

 on the lower western slopes of the Cascade Range. It as- 

 cends these and the Sierra Nevada of California up to five 

 thousand, and in some places up to six thousand or more 

 feet above the ocean. In regions where it thrives best, trees 



