48 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES. 



Leaves usually rounded and obtuse at apex, dark yellow-green or rarely blue-green; cones 

 2'-4i' long, their bracts much exserted. 1. P. taxifolia (B, E, F, G, H). 



Leaves acuminate at apex", bluish gray; cones 4'-6^' long, their bracts slightly exserted. 



2. P. macrocarpa (G). 



1. Pseudotsuga taxifolia Britt. Douglas Spruce. Red Fir. 



Pseudotsuga mucronala Sudw. 



Leaves straight or rarely slightly incurved, rounded and obtuse at apex, or acute on 

 leading shoots, f'-li' long, T y- T V wide, dark yellow-green or rarely light or dark bluish 

 green, occasionally persistent until their sixteenth year. Flowers: male orange-red; fe- 



Fig. 50 



male with slender elongated bracts deeply tinged with red. Fruit pendant on long stout 

 stems, 4'-6^' long, with thin slightly concave scales rounded and occasionally somewhat 

 elongated at apex, usually rather longer than broad, when fully grown at midsummer 

 slightly puberulous, dark blue-green below, purplish toward the apex, bright red on the 

 closely appressed margins, and pale green bracts becoming slightly reflexed above the 

 middle, '-' wide, often extending \' beyond the scales; seeds light reddish brown and 

 lustrous above, pale and marked below with large irregular white spots, |' long, nearly \' 

 wide, almost as long as their dark brown wings broadest just below the middle, oblique 

 above and rounded at the apex. 



A tree, often 200 high, with a trunk 3-4 in diameter, frequently taller, with a trunk 

 10-12 in diameter, but in the dry interior of the continent rarely more than 80-100 

 high, with a trunk hardly exceeding 2-3 in diameter, slender crowded branches densely 

 clothed with long pendulous lateral branches, forming while the tree is young an open 

 pyramid, soon deciduous from trees crowded in the forest, often leaving the trunk naked 

 for two thirds of its length and surmounted by a comparatively small narrow head soi 

 times becoming flap-topped by the lengthening of the upper branches, and slender brand 

 lets pubescent for three or four years, pale orange color and lustrous during their fir 

 season, becoming bright reddish brown and ultimately dark gray-brown. Winter-hue 

 ovoid, acute, the terminal bud often \' long and nearly twice as large as the lateral buds. 

 Bark on young trees smooth, thin, rather lustrous, dark gray-brown, usually becoming on 

 old trunks 10'-12' thick, and divided into oblong plates broken into great broad rounded 

 and irregularly connected ridges separating on the surface into small thick closely ap- 



