CONIFERS 



47 



loose pyramid and on older trees clothed with slender pendant lateral branches 

 frequently 2-3 long, and stout rigid glabrous branchlets pale green at first, 

 becoming dark or light 

 orange-brown during 

 their first autumn and 

 winter and finally dark 

 gray - brown ; at the 

 extreme northwestern 

 limits of its range occa- 

 sionally reduced to a 

 low shrub. Winter- 

 buds ovate, acute, or 

 conical, \'-^' long, with 

 pale chestnut - brown 

 acute scales, often 

 tipped with short 

 points and more or less 

 reflexed above the mid- 

 die. Bark \'-^' thick and broken on the surface into large thin loosely attached 

 dark red-brown or on young trees sometimes bright cinnamon-red scales. Wood 

 light, soft, not strong, straight-grained, light brown tinged with red, with thick 

 nearly white sapwood; largely manufactured into lumber used in the interior finish 

 of buildings, for fencing, boat-building, cooperage, wooden-ware, and packing-cases. 



Distribution. Moist sandy, often swampy soil, or less frequently at the far north 

 on wet rocky slopes, from the eastern end of Kadiak Island southward through the 

 coast region of Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon to Mendocino 

 County, California. 



Often planted in western and central Europe and occasionally in the middle Atlan- 

 tic states as an ornamental tree. 



4-6 



4. TSUGA, Carr. Hemlock. 



Tall pyramidal trees, with deeply furrowed astringent bark bright cinnamon-red 

 except on the surface, soft pale wood, nodding leading shoots, slender scattered hori- 

 zontal often pendulous branches, the secondary branches three or four times irregu- 

 larly pinnately ramified, with slender round glabrous or pubescent ultimate divisions, 

 the whole forming graceful pendant masses of foliage, and minute winter-buds. 

 Leaves flat or angular, obtuse and often emarginate or acute at the apex, spirally 

 disposed, usually appearing almost 2-ranked by the twisting of their petioles, those 

 on the upper side of the branch then much shorter than the others, abruptly nar- 

 rowed into short petioles jointed on ultimately woody persistent bases, with stomata 

 on the lower surface ; on one species not 2-ranked, and of nearly equal length, with 

 stomata on both surfaces. Flowers solitary, the staminate in the axils of leaves of 

 the previous year, globose, composed of numerous subglobose anthers, with connec- 

 tives produced into short gland-like tips, the pistillate terminal, erect, with nearly 

 circular scales slightly longer or shorter than their membranaceous bracts. Fruit 

 an ovate-oblong, oval, or oblong-cylindrical obtuse usually pendulous nearly sessile 

 green or rarely purple cone becoming light or dark reddish brown, with concave sub- 

 orbicular or ovate-oblong scales thin and entire on the margins, much longer than 



