PINACE^E 47 



surface next their scales with 1 or 2 large resin-vesicles, with wings nearly \' long, broadest 

 above the middle, gradually narrowed below, slightly or not at all oblique at the rounded 

 apex. 



A tree, usually 70-100 but occasionally 150 high, with a slightly tapering trunk 4-5 

 in diameter, gracefully pendant slender branches furnished with drooping frond-like lateral 

 branches, their ultimate divisions erect and forming an open pyramid surmounted by the 

 long drooping leading shoot, and thin flexible or sometimes stout rigid branchlets light 

 reddish brown and covered for two or three years with short pale dense pubescence, becom- 

 ing grayish brown and very scaly. Winter-buds acute, about ' long, the scales of the 

 outer ranks furnished on the back with conspicuous midribs produced into slender decidu^ 

 ous awl-like tips. Bark I'-lA' thick, deeply divided into connected rounded ridges broken 

 into thin closely appressed dark cinnamon scales shaded with blue or purple. Wood light, 

 soft, not strong, close-grained, pale brown or red, with thin nearly white sap-wood; occa- 

 sionally manufactured into lumber. 



Distribution. Exposed ridges and slopes at high altitudes along the upper border of 

 the forest from southeastern Alaska, southward over the mountain ranges of British Co- 

 lumbia to the Olympic Mountains of Washington, and eastward to the western slopes of 

 the Selkirk Mountains in the interior of southern British Columbia, and along the Bitter 

 Root Mountains to the headwaters of the Clearwater River, Idaho; along the Cascade 

 Mountains of Washington and Oregon, on the mountain ranges of northern California, 

 and along the high Sierra Nevada to the canon of the south fork of King's River, Cali- 

 fornia; in Alaska occasionally descending to the sea-level, and toward the southern limits 

 of its range often ascending to elevations of 10,000. 



Often planted as an ornamental tree in western and central Europe, and rarely in the 

 eastern United States. 





5. PSEUDOTSUGA Carr. 



Pyramidal trees, with thick deeply furrowed bark, hard strong wood, with spirally 

 marked wood-cells, slender usually horizontal irregularly whorled branches clothed w r ith 

 slender spreading lateral branches forming broat flat-topped masses of foliage, ovoid acute 

 leaf-buds, the lateral buds in the axils of upper leaves, their inner scales accrescent and 

 marking the branchlets with ring-like scars. Leaves petiolate, linear, flat, rounded and 

 obtase or acuminate at apex, straight or incurved, grooved on the upper side, marked 

 on the lower side by numerous rows of stomata on each side of the prominent midrib, 

 spreading nearly at right angles with the branch. Flowers solitary, the male axillary, 

 scattered along the branches, oblong-cylindric, with numerous globose anthers, their con- 

 nectives terminating in short spurs, the female terminal or in the axils of upper leaves, 

 composed of spirally arranged ovate rounded scales much shorter than their acutely 2-lobed 

 bracts, with midribs produced into elongated slender tips. Fruit an ovoid-oblong acute 

 pendulous cone maturing in one season, w r ith rounded concave rigid scales persistent on 

 the axis of the cone after the escape of the seeds, and becoming dark red-brown, much 

 shorter than the 2-lobed bracts with midribs ending in rigid woody linear awns, those at the 

 base of the cone without scales and becoming linear-lanceolate by the gradual suppression 

 of their lobes. Seeds nearly triangular, full, rounded and dark-colored on the upper side 

 and pale on the lower side, shorter than their oblong wings infolding the upper side of the 

 seeds in a dark covering; outer seed-coat thick and crustaceous, the inner thin and mem- 

 branaceous; cotyledons 6-12, much shorter than the inferior radicle. 



Pseudotsuga is confined to western North America, southern Japan, southwestern China 

 and Formosa Four species are recognized. 



Pseudotsuga, a barbarous combination of a Greek with a Japanese word, indicates the 

 relation of these trees with the Hemlocks. 



