STEEP TRAILS 



hide them wholly, or to cover the bright mossy 

 carpet that is spread beneath all the dense parts 

 of the woods. 



The other species is also very picturesque 

 and at the same tune very large, the largest 

 tree of its kind that I have ever seen anywhere. 

 Not even in the great maple woods of Canada 

 have I seen trees either as large or with so 

 much striking, picturesque character. It is 

 widely distributed throughout western Wash- 

 ington, but is never found scattered among 

 the conifers in the dense woods. It keeps to- 

 gether mostly in magnificent groves by itself 

 on the damp levels along the banks of streams 

 or lakes where the ground is subject to over- 

 flow. In such situations it attains a height 

 of seventy-five to a hundred feet and a diam- 

 eter of four to eight feet. The trunk sends 

 out large limbs toward its neighbors, laden 

 with long drooping mosses beneath and rows 

 of ferns on their upper surfaces, thus making 

 a grand series of richly ornamented interlacing 

 arches, with the leaves laid thick overhead, 

 rendering the underwood spaces delightfully 

 cool and open. Never have I seen a finer for- 

 est ceiling or a more picturesque one, while 

 the floor, covered with tall ferns and rubus and 

 thrown into hillocks by the bulging roots, 

 Baatches it well. The largest of these maple 



236 



