ioo WEST-AMERICAN 



the floor of Yosemite Valley, and northward. The 

 mountain form of California Nutmeg affects a portion of 

 the west slope, while the Western Juniper forms large 

 trees in higher locations, and the rare Mountain Cypress 

 occurs near Castle Crags. 



Around the solitary, towering Mt. Shasta, stretching 

 away for miles, is a magificent Fir Forest, composed 

 almost exclusively of one form the feather-coned, per- 

 haps distinct form of the Magnificent Fir. With this 

 marked variety which I have called the Shasta Fir, 

 there ^rows near Wagon Camp, the quite distinct Golden 

 Fir, being large trees, with thin, finely checked bark and 

 lovely golden-colored cones. 



OREGON AND NORTHWARD. 



Crossing the Siskiyou range, the natural dividing line 

 between California and the far North a range, by the 

 way, on which is lodged the new \Veeping Spruce we 

 find trees fostered by greater quantities of moisture, be- 

 coming more numerous, and often of immense size, the 

 number of species, however, being fewer. The head- 

 quarters of this overgrowth of development is the lake- 

 dotted region around Puget Sound, lying both in Wash- 

 ington and British Columbia. 



Here is the historic forest primeval vast, gloomy, 

 almost impenetrable, where anciently the great rivers 

 heard no sound save their own dashings. 



A half dozen trees attain enormous proportions. The 

 colossal Douglas Spruce, 15 to 25 feet in diameter and 300 

 to 400 feet high, the scarcely less enormous Tide-land 

 Spruce, and Engelmann Spruce, the Western Hemlock, 

 the Grand Fir, and Noble Fir, with the Pacific Red Ce- 

 dar, comprise the bulk of the forest. Other trees, limited 

 in quantity and size, occupy special sites. The Lovely 

 Fir and the Sub- Alpine Fir are found near the timber 

 line on Mt. Hood and neighboring peaks, as well as 

 others far northward in British Columbia. Alpine trees 

 battling with snows and glaciers are the White-barked 

 ' Pine, the Sub-Alpine Fir, and the Alpine Hemlock, with 

 a prostrate Prickly-leaved Juniper carpeting the newly 

 vacated glacier beds. 



