418 FOEEST TREES OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE. 



levels, sometimes under western yellow pine with manzanita, eeanothus, and other 

 brush ; silvical habits elsewhere imperfectly known now. 



Climatic Conditions. — Similar to those of redwood and yellow pine. Tolerance 

 (evidently endures a good deal of shade) and reproduction undetermined. 



Family ERICACE^. 



Ericacere, popularly called the " heath " family, contains a large number 

 of shrubs and a few small or medium-sized, hard-wooded trees, all widely dis- . 

 tributed in the warm and temperate regions of the world. Among its well- 

 known members are the huckleberries, blueberries, and cranberries ; the popular 

 trailing arbutus, wintergreen, and manzanitas ; and the azaleas and rhododen- 

 drons, which are among the most beautiful flowering shrubs and small trees in 

 the world. While many of the shrubs, wild and cultivated, are commercially 

 important for their fruit or for ornamental planting, but few of the trees supply 

 wood of value, except for minor purposes. They vary greatly in their require- 

 ments of soil, moisture, and light, some of them inhabiting cool, shady forests, 

 or cold, wet bogs from sea level to high mountains, while others thrive Ui arid 

 soils of hot mountain slopes. They have simple, single-bladed leaves, which 

 are evergreen or shed annually in autumn. The flowers are perfectly bisexual, 

 and the fruits vary from juicy berries to dry, small-seeded capsules, all of 

 which are matured in one season. 



The family contains nearly 70 genera, about 20 of which inhabit the United 

 States. Eight or ten of these are trees, represented in the Pacific region by 

 Arctostaphi/los ° and Arbutus. 



ARBUTUS. MADRONAS. 



Arbutus is a small group of evergreen-leafed shrubs and chiefly small 

 trees, with peculiarly thin, red bark on branches, large limbs, and smaller 

 trunks; bark of large tree trunks thicker, brown, and scaly. The leaves, borne 

 singly, are thick and leathery, while the small, urn-shaped flowers (5-lobed at 

 top) are in rather large, open, branched clusters, the main stem thick and stiff. 

 The fruit, berry-like in appearance, dry and mealy, is spherical, one-third to 

 one-half inch in diameter, bright red or orange-red, with a finely warty surface, 

 and 5-celled, with several or numerous small seeds. The attractive looking 

 " berries " are eaten by birds, which assist in disseminating the seeds. 



Members of this group have dense, rather heavy, close-grained, often very 

 strong, stiff wood, which is apt to check badly if dried rapidly and without 

 special treatment. That of our representatives is not especially valuable, except 

 for charcoal and minor domestic uses. 



Three of the dozen known species occur in the United States and Mexico, 

 and one of these inhabits only the Pacific region. Some of them grow in 

 rich, dry or moist soils from sea-level to several thousand feet elevation, 

 sometimes forming a considerable part of the shady cover along mountain 

 streams and in coves, while others grow on poor slopes of low hills and high 

 mountains. 



a This group contains the chiefly shrubby, well-known manzanitas so frequent on dry 

 slopes in the Pacific region. At least 3 or 4 (particularly A. manzanita Tarry, A. 

 glauca Lindley, and-A. viscida Parry) of the known species occasionally become veritable 

 trees or tree-like, and eventually should be included among the Pacific trees. In the 

 writer's opinion, however, the whole group requires much more careful study than has 

 yet been given to it in the field before this can be done properly. For the present, 

 therefore, consideration of Arctostaphylos is omitted from this work. 



