Among these are both the tallest and the largest trees in the 

 world. There are many claims made for these records, the most 

 popular being the Giant Redwoods of the Sierra Nevada in Cali- 

 fornia as the biggest (in volume) and the Redwood (Sequoia 

 sempervirens) as the tallest. These trees we will consider later 

 (see Chapter 10), so suffice it to remark here that the specimen 

 of the latter claimed, after measurement, to be the world's tallest 

 stood 340 feet. This is, however, almost paltry compared to some 

 of the Douglas Firs recorded from British Columbia, as, for 

 instance, the one measured, after it was felled, by Dr. R. Leckie- 

 Ewing in the Lyn Valley in 1940. It was 417 feet tall, and the 

 first limbs did not sprout from the trunk until 300 feet above the 

 ground. It was 25 feet in diameter at three feet above the ground, 

 had bark 16 inches thick and a circumference of 77 feet, and was 

 9 feet in diameter at a height of 200 feet. Dr. Leckie-Ewing stated 

 in a letter to the highly respected British magazine The Field 

 that there had been even larger specimens felled and that 

 experienced local timbermen believed there were more of even 

 greater proportions still standing. This tree would have topped 

 a forty-story building. 



To lie under one of these great trees and look upward with 

 a pair of powerful binoculars is an unforgettable experience. 

 Even 250-footers seem to reach literally into the sky, so that one 

 comes to understand certain Amerindian legends to the effect 

 that in times of stress in bygone ages whole tribes assembled at 

 the tallest tree in the world and then ascended it into heaven. 

 At the same time, if you are of scientific turn of mind, you may 

 find yourself doubting the current explanation of the method by 

 which water in the form of sap is lifted from the ground to the 

 head foliage of such monsters, defying not only gravity but, it 

 would seem, several basic principles of hydrodynamics. But 

 there are the little needles waving in the wind almost at the 

 limit of vision, fresh and green and obviously breathing out 

 moisture. 



WHAT IS A TREE? 



There are some forty-five species of trees listed from the coastal 

 belt of this province, half of which are conifers. In actual num- 

 bers of trees the latter predominate, as they also do in size. In 

 addition to the four dominant conifers there are four species of 

 pines, the Alpine Larch and the Tamarack in the far north, two 

 other species of spruce, the Mountain Hemlock, three true firs, 

 the Yellow Cypress, the Rocky Mountain Red Cypress (or so- 

 called Cedar with the tongue-twisting Latin name of Chamoe- 

 cyparis nootkatensis), the common Dwarf Juniper, and the 

 Western Yew. Among the deciduous trees are half a dozen 

 species of willows that grow as trees rather than mere bushes, 

 the well-known Aspen, two birches, and two alders. In the 

 extreme south of the province there are patches of Garry Oak 

 at low altitudes in the strip shown as "Deciduous Forest" on the 

 general map. There are three maples — the Broadleaf, Vine, 

 and Dwarf — two cherries, a Serviceberry, the Black Haw, an 

 Elderberry and a Dogwood, a Madrofia (Arbutus), and the beau- 

 tiful Oregon Crab Apple (Mnlus rivularis), which extends very 

 far north. The bushes are of even wider variety, and the herba- 

 ceous plants multitudinous. 



As we are now in the land of trees and shall remain therein 

 till the end of our journey, despite seemingly endless prairies 

 and some treeless near-deserts, it behooves us to define a tree. 

 This is not quite so obvious as might at first appear, so that one 

 sometimes sees even in print phrases such as "trees, plants, and 

 flowers." All trees are plants, and almost all of them "flower." 



as do shrubs and herbs. A sounder generality is "trees, shrubs, 

 herbs, grasses, and mosses and other lower plants." A tree must 

 have a woody and a single stem, with a more or less definitely 

 formed crown of branches and leaves above. This includes 

 palms, yuccas, cycads, and some cactuses, though the stems of 

 the last are only partially woody and that wood is internaL 

 Botanists prefer also to confine the term tree to plants of at least 

 eight feet in height with stems not less than two inches in di- 

 ameter. However, there is no sharp line between treelike shrubs 

 and shrublike trees, and quite a number of woody plants may 

 grow in one form in one area or at one altitude, and in another 

 in another place or at a different height. 



THE CONE-BEARERS 



There are six families of coniferous trees, examples of four of 

 which are found on this continent. (The other two are confined 

 to the southern hemisphere.) The largest family is that of the 

 pines and includes also the larches, the spruces, the so-called 

 Douglas Fir, the hemlocks, and the true firs. The second-largest 

 family is that of the cedars, which includes also the junipers. The 

 third family contains the cypresses and the redwoods; the fourth, 

 the yews, of which there are three odd species in North America, 

 and two very strange trees known as the California Nutmeg 

 (Torreya californica) and the Stinking Cedar (T. taxifoliaj, which 

 is found only in one small area along the Apalachicola River in 

 northern Florida. Conifers may be said to be more ancient and 

 in some respects more primitive than the broad-leafed trees, and 

 there are fewer forms of them than of other trees. However, 

 conifers cover many hundreds of times more of the area of the 

 earth's land surface than do all other woody growth put together. 

 On the whole, they do better than other trees in cooler climates, 

 at altitude, and in sandy or waterlogged soils. The two largest 

 forests in the world, lying all across northern Asia and North 

 America, are predominantly and in some places exclusively conif- 

 erous. It is surprising to find that almost the whole of this con- 

 tinent that is forested is clothed in coniferous trees, predomi- 

 nantly pines or spruces. Pure stands of deciduous or other 

 broad-leafed, non-coniferous trees are actually confined to very 

 limited areas, mostly around the lower slopes of mountain 

 ranges at middle latitudes and in narrow, winding belts fringing 

 the prairies and parklands. 



There are some thirty-five species of pines found on this con- 

 tinent, and although pine-cone collecting may sound like a rather 

 unexciting hobby, it has its more fascinating aspects. Identifica- 

 tion of the trees is a highly specialized pursuit, as they have a 

 habit of varying in needle form and arrangement that can drive 

 even a professional botanist to distraction. If you brancli out into 

 collecting the cones of other conifers you have manifestly 

 become an addict. In fact, anybody traveling widely on this con- 

 tinent, however uninterested in vegetation to start with, will 

 probably find that, sooner or later, he is irked into attempts to 

 identify firs, cedars, pines, and so forth. Unfortunately, there 

 does not appear to be any one available book that shows all of 

 them with pictures of both the cones and the foliage. There are 

 also other pitfalls, notably in the popular names, which not only 

 differ from region to region, but many of which may be applied 

 to different species in the same region. Perhaps the most 

 muddling example is the so-called Douglas "Fir" (Pseudotsuga 

 taxifolia or menziesiij. which is not a fir but a member of a 

 genus that contains otherwise only the so-called Bigcone 

 "Spruce" (P.macrocarpa). which is of course not a spruce! The 

 final conundrum for the layman is that the timber of the 



72 



