140 Forests and Trees 



i. DOUGLAS FIR. Pseudotsuga mucronata. (Torrey) Mayr. 



"A big tree is nature's masterpiece. It has a strange air of other 

 days about it, a thoroughbred look inherited from the long ago." 



JOHN MUIR. 



No minute description is necessary to describe this, the 

 giant of the Rocky Mountain forests. It is the largest and 

 most abundant tree in a region where trees are plentiful and big 

 trees are the rule. With a height of three hundred feet, it some- 

 times has a diameter of twelve or fourteen feet at the base, the 

 bark being at times fully a foot thick. If 

 growing in the open it may be clothed 

 with branches to the base, forming a 

 somewhat loose cone, the lower branches 

 drooping. When crowded, however, the 

 trunks are naked for fully two thirds of 

 their length, standing like immense col- 

 umns supporting the green roof of the 

 forest. 



FIG. 15. Douglas Fir. The Douglas fir can be described only 

 in superlatives. It is not only the largest 

 and most abundant, but the most valuable timber tree of 

 western America. The wood is hard, strong and resinous, vary- 

 ing from light yellow to reddish, and may be either coarse or 

 fine-grained. It splits easily and is rather hard to work, but 

 where size, strength and endurance are required is without a 

 rival. It is extensively used in all kinds of construction and 

 also for floors and interior finishing. 



This tree is distributed all over the mountain regions of 

 British Columbia and Alberta south of latitude 51, except 

 in a narrow strip along the western coast of Vancouver Island 

 and the coast of the mainland north of the Island. Along the 

 Gulf of Georgia it grows right to the water's edge, both on the 

 mainland and on Vancouver Island, but it does not seem able 



