COVE-BEARERS'. 21 



No. 1 Great Sugar Pine - Pinus Lambertiana, Dougl. 

 Trees of the largest dimensions, 120 to 200, or, 

 favorably situated, 250 to 300 feet high and 10 to 20 

 in diameter; lumber easily worked, very light, white 

 and valuable for interior finish, for doors, blinds, sash, 

 etc. Trees never occupying a region exclusively, but 

 scattered among other species of the Coast, Cascade, 

 and Sierra Mountains at middle elevations. Cones, 

 usually a bronze green until ripe, '2 to 4 inches thick 

 (6 inches when opened) and very long, 10 to 26 

 inches the longest known. Male catkins numerous, 

 yellow, 1 to 2 inches long, in clustered rosettes near 

 end of branches. 



The GREAT SUGAR PINE is the accepted, the crowned, 

 prince of the Pine family. Not only by virtue of its un- 

 excelled dimensions and the magnitude of its cones is it 

 regal, but it is a most kingly monarch in its majestic, 

 lofty bearing, its erect, self-asserting dignity, and its 

 bowed head, obedient to its only masters the powers 

 above. Only the supreme emperor of the whole vege- 

 table world, the immense Sequoia, also a denizen of our 

 great Sierra forest, and admitting the Sugar Pine to fel- 

 lowship, excels in dimensions (every way but in fruit) 

 this noble, dominant tree of the whole western world. 



We can well imagine the ecstasy of delight, and excuse 

 the mild self-gratulation with which David Douglas, the 

 discoverer of this noble tree, writing from the Falls of the 

 Columbia River, March 24, 1826, to his friend, Dr. Wm. 

 Hooker, of London, inscribes: 



