$6 WEST-AMERICAN 



In a few respects this last genus approaches the 

 Firs; they have similar smooth brauchlets and ex- 

 serted bracts, thus justifying their arrangement next 

 to the great family of Firs. Two species: 



No. 1 DOLJglaS SprtlCe P* taxifolia, Britton. 



Pinus Taxifolia, Lambert, 1803. 

 Pseudotsuga Douglas'ti, Carrire, 1855. 



Large and valuable lumber trees of the North- 

 west; forming the larger part of the great forests 

 about Puget Sound and southward. Cones narrow, 

 2 to 3J inches long, the feather-like bracts protruding 

 \ to f of an inch. Trees near the coast northward, 

 and crowded into groves remain slender, and become 

 very tall, 300 to 400 feet high, and are largely used 

 for piles and for ship masts and other timbers. In * 

 other situations, especially interior and southward, 

 they become large-bodied trees, 10 to 12 feet in di- 

 ameter, with thick, hard, black bark, divided by deep 

 furrows into large, longitudinal sections. 



PECULIARITIES OF THE DOUGLAS SPRUCE. 



The Douglas Spruce is the most extensive of the special 

 products of the favoring conditions of the Northwest, 

 being a component part of, and precisely co-extensive 

 with, this great forest development in all its extent from 

 the Pacific Coast to the Rocky Mountains, and from 

 British Columbia to Mexico. No other tree is more util- 



