THE FIRS 255 



branches the bark is silvery white. In mid-June the 

 flowers appear, the staminate in profuse clusters against 

 the silvery leaf-linings, bright red, on the under sides of 

 the platforms. It is a blind or stupid person who can 

 travel in fir woods and fail to notice this wonderful flower 

 pageant, that may be viewed by merely looking upward. 

 The pistillate flowers, greenish yellow, tipped with pink, 

 are out of sight as a rule, among the needles in the tree-tops. 

 They ripen into tall cylindrical cones, six to eight inches 

 long and half as wide, that fall to pieces at maturity, 

 discharging their broad thin scales wiith the purple irides- 

 cent winged seeds. 



Pure forests of this splendid fir tree are found in southern 

 Oregon among the Cascade Mountains, between five and 

 seven thousand feet above the sea. It is the commonest 

 species in the forest belt of the Sierra Nevada, between 

 elevations of six thousand and nine thousand feet. From 

 northern California, it follows the western slope of the 

 Sierra Nevada, climbing to ten thousand feet in its 

 southernmost range. A variety, Shastensis, Lemm., is 

 the red fir with bright yellow fringed bracts on its stout 

 cones. This ornament upon its fi-uits seems to be the 

 chief distinguishing character of the form which occurs 

 with the parent species on the mountains in Oregon and 

 northern Cahfomia, and recurs in the southern Sierra 

 Nevada. 



The best defense of this superb red^r is the comparative 

 worthlessness of its soft, weak wood. Coarse lumber 

 for cheap buildings, packing oases and fuel makes the 

 only demands upon it. In European parks it is success- 

 fully grown as an ornamental tree, and has proved haxdy 

 in eastern Massachusetts. 



