CONIFERS 51 



dark purple puberulous bracts rounded and abruptly contracted at the apex; seeds 

 ^' long, with occasional oil-vesicles, one third to one half as long as their narrow 

 wings. 



A tree, frequently 200 high, with a tall trunk 6-10 in diameter, and short 

 slender usually pendulous branches forming a narrow pyramidal head, and slender 

 pale yellow-brown branchlets ultimately becoming dark reddish brown, coated at 

 first with long pale hairs, and pubescent or puberulous for five or six years. Win- 

 ter-buds ovate, bright chestnut-brown, about ^' long. Bark on young trunks thin, 

 dark orange-brown, and separated by shallow fissures into narrow flat plates broken 

 into delicate scales, becoming on fully grown trees l'-l' thick and deeply divided 

 into broad flat connected ridges covered with closely appressed brown scales more 

 or less tinged with cinnamon-red. Wood light, hard and tough, pale brown tinged 

 with yellow, with thin nearly white sapwood ; stronger and more durable than the 

 wood of the other American hemlocks; now largely manufactured into lumber used 

 principally in the construction of buildings. The bark is used in large quantities 

 in tanning leather; from the inner bark the Indians of Alaska obtain one of their 

 principal articles of vegetable food. 



Distribution. Southeastern Alaska, southward near the coast to Marin County, 

 California, extending eastward over the mountains of southern British Columbia, 

 northern Washington and Idaho, to the western slopes of the continental divide, and 

 through Oregon to the western slopes of the Cascade Mountains, sometimes ascend- 

 ing in the interior to elevations of 6000 above the sea ; most abundant and of its 

 largest size on the coast of Washington and Oregon; often forming a large part of 

 the forests of the northwest coast. 



Frequently planted as an ornamental tree in temperate Europe. 



4. Tsuga Mertensiana, Sarg. Mountain Hemlock. Patton Spruce. 

 Leaves standing out from all sides of the branch, remote on leading shoots and 

 crowded on short lateral branchlets, rounded and occasionally obscurely grooved or 



on young plants sometimes conspicuously grooved on the upper surface, rounded and 

 slightly ribbed on the lower surface, bluntly pointed, often more or less curved, 

 stomatiferous above and below, with about 8 rows of stomata on each surface, light 

 bluish green or on some individuals pale blue, -^5'-!' long, about fa' wide, abruptly 



