66 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



dular on the back, and nearly covering the flattened obscurely glandular-pitted and abruptly 

 pointed leaves of the inner ranks. Flowers appearing in January on the ends of short lat- 

 eral brarichlets of the previous year; male tingeing the tree with gold during the winter 

 and early spring, ovate, nearly \' long, with nearly orbicular or broadly ovate connectives, 

 rounded, acute or acuminate at the apex and slightly erose on the margins; female sub- 

 tended by 2-6 pairs of leaf-like scales, with ovate acute light yellow-green slightly spread- 

 ing scales. Fruit ripening and discharging its seeds in the autumn, oblong, f '-!' long, pen- 

 dulous, light red-brown; seeds oblong-lanceolate, %'-%' long, semiterete and marked below 

 by a conspicuous pale basal hilum; inner layer of the seed-coat penetrated by elongated 

 resin-chambers, filled with red liquid balsamic resin. 



A tree, usually 80-100 or rarely 150 high, with a tall straight slightly and irregularly 

 lobed trunk tapering from a broad base, 3 or 4 or occasionally 6 or 7 in diameter, 



Fig. 65 



slender branches erect at the top of the tree, below sweeping downward in bold curves, 

 forming a narrow open feathery crown becoming in old age irregular in outline by the 

 greater development of a few ultimately upright branches forming secondary stems, and 

 stout branchlets somewhat flattened and light yellow-green at first, turning light red-brown 

 during the summer and ultimately brown more or less tinged with purple, the lateral branch- 

 lets much flattened, 4'-6' long, and usually deciduous at the end of the second or third 

 season. Bark '-!' thick, bright cinnamon-red, and broken into irregular ridges covered 

 with closely appressed plate-like scales. Wood light, soft, close-grained very durable in 

 contact with the soil, light reddish brown, with thin nearly white sapwood; often injured 

 by dry rot but largely used for fencing, laths and shingles, the interior finish of buildings, 

 for furniture, and in the construction of flumes. 



Distribution. Singly or in small groves from the southeastern slope of Mt. Hood, Ore- 

 gon, and southward along the Cascade Mountains; on the high mountains of northern 

 California, on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, and in Alpine County on their 

 eastern slope, on the Washoe Mountains, western Nevada, in the California coast ranges 

 from the Santa Lucia Mountains, Monterey County to the high mountains in the south- 

 ern part of the state; on the Sierra del Pimal and the San Pedro Martir Mountains, 

 Lower California; most abundant and of its largest size on the Sierra Nevada, of central 

 California at elevations of 5000-7000 above the sea. 



Often cultivated as an ornamental tree in western and central Europe, where it grows 

 rapidly and promises to attain a large size; hardy and occasionally planted in the New 

 England and middle Atlantic states. 



