58 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



lets puberulous for four or five years and generally pointing forward. Winter-buds ovoid- 

 oblong, red-brown, about f ' long. Bark becoming on old trunks l'-2' thick, bright red- 

 brown, and deeply divided into broad flat ridges irregularly broken by cross fissures and 



Fig. 58 



covered with thick closely appressed scales. Wood light, hard, strong, rather close-grained, 

 pale brown streaked with red, with darker colored sapwood; occasionally manufactured 

 into lumber and used under the name of larch for the interior finish of buildings and for 

 packing-cases. 



Distribution. Slopes of Mt. Baker in northern Washington and southward to the valley 

 of the Mackenzie River, Oregon, and the Siskiyou Mountains, California, at elevations of 

 from 2000-5000 above the sea; most abundant and often forming extensive forests on 

 the Cascade Mountains of Washington; less abundant and of smaller size on the eastern 

 and northern slopes of these mountains. In Oregon sometimes called Larch. 



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

 states hardy in sheltered positions as far north as Massachusetts. 



8. Abies magnifica A. Murr. Red Fir. 



Leaves almost equally 4-sided, ribbed above and below, with 6-8 rows of stomata on 

 each of the 4 sides, pale and very glaucous during their first season, later becoming 

 blue-green, persistent usually for about ten years; on young plants and lower branches 

 oblanceolate, somewhat flattened, rounded, bluntly pointed, f'-H' long, ^ wide, those 

 on the lower side of the branch spreading in 2 nearly horizontal ranks by the twist at 

 their base, on upper, especially on fertile branches, much thickened, with more prominent 



Fig. 59 



