The Firs 



mountains of western Washington, Oregon and California. Uses: 

 Lumber for interior finish of houses and for boxing. Rarely 

 planted in Eastern States. Needs shelter at Boston. Cultivated 

 in Europe. 



The red fir, another giant of the Northwest, attains its best 

 development in the Cascade Mountains of Washington and Oregon 

 on elevated slopes facing the sea. An old tree is often 200 to 250 

 feet high, with a trunk 6 to 8 feet in diameter, crowned with a 

 broad, round head, quite distinct from the spire form usual among 

 firs. There are forests of this tree which furnish, at present in 

 limited quantities, wood for boxing and house finishing. The 

 wood is brownish red, with sap wood of a darker colour. The 

 lumber dealer calls it "larch." As long as better lumber is to be 

 had, these forests will be allowed to wait. 



The distinctive features of this tree are its glaucous, blue- 

 green foliage and the stout brown or purple cones, 4 to 5 inches 

 long, and richly ornamented by the bracts which turn back like 

 little pale green scallop shells over each scale. 



Red Fir (Abies magnifica, A. Murr.) — A pyramidal tree 

 which becomes round-topped with age, 150 to 200 feet high; trunk 

 6 to 8 feet through; limbs pendulous. Bark red-brown, 4 to 6 

 inches thick, scaly and broken into ridges and deep fissures that 

 cross and join; twigs reddish, becoming silvery white. l-Food 

 soft, light, weak, durable, red. Buds scaly, ovate, red, lustrous. 

 Leaves 4-angled, pale at first, then blue-green, crowded to erect 

 position on the twig. Flowers: conspicuous; staminate reddish 

 purple; pistillate green with red tips on scales. Fruit oblong- 

 cylindrical cones, 6 to 9 inches long, purplish brown; scales plain, 

 I inch broad at apex, closely overlapping and concealing the 

 bracts. Preferred habitat, mountain slopes, at 5,000 to 7,000 feet 

 elevation. Distribution, Cascade range in southern Oregon, 

 throughout the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. 

 Uses: Wood makes packing cases and cheap buildings. Tree 

 planted as an ornamental in western Europe. Scarcely hardy in 

 our Eastern States. 



"The magnificent silver fir," as John Muir calls it, is one of 

 the noblest trees of the Northwest, a lover of the mountain slopes, 

 which it climbs to two miles above sea level before it reaches its 

 limit. On moraines, at an elevation of 7,000 to 8,000 feet, it 

 grows to a height of 200 to 250 feet and a diameter of 5 to 7 feet 



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