ocr., 1899,} SUASTA FIR BELT. 37 
The upper edee of the Shasta tir belt meets the alpine hemlocks and 
white-bark pines of the belt above; the lower edge the ponderosa pines, 
incense cedars, Douglas spruce, and white firs of the belt below. 
The firs are easily distinguished by bark, branches, and cones. The 
Shasta fir has very dark and relatively thin bark, regularly furrowed 
so as to form ‘plates’ like those of the ponderosa pines, only smaller, 
narrower, and transversely cracked. The branches are irregular, droop 
at first (from the weight of winter snow), and then curve upward, and 
the branchlets are sinall and terete, and stand out with mathematical 
precision; the cones are huge, and their green, tongue-like, single-pointed 
bracts protrude far beyond the scales, as in the noble fir of the north- 
ern Cascades. In young cones the bracts 
stand out straight; in old cones they are 
strongly deflexed. The white fir (Abies 
lowiana) has much thicker and grayer 
bark, deeply furrowed at base and not 
forming regular scales or plates; the 
branches are more regular and more nearly 
horizontal, the branchlets flatter, more 
spreading, and lacking the mathematical 
lines of the Shasta fir; the cones are more 
slender, and the tricuspidate bracts are 
short, reaching less than half-way across 
the scale. The cone-scale differences 
are shown in the accompanying diagrams. 
(See fig.19.) The year 1898 was an ‘off year’ 
for cones, but plenty of old scales were 
found on the ground, and broken cones 
were discovered in holes in logs, where 
they had been carried by pine squirrels. 
The Shasta fir forest is mainly pure, 
but in places, particularly on the east 
and northeast sides of the mountain, silver pines are scattered through 
it, and in one place along its lower border (between Ash and Incon- 
stance creeks) the firs are replaced by lodge-pole pines, the only ones 
on the mountain. 
Whether or not Abies magnifica occurs on Shasta is a question on 
which we can throw no light. I do not know how to tell magnifica 
from shastensis except by the cones, and the trees did not bear cones the 
year of our visit.!' Still, we found great numbers of old cones tucked 
away by the squirrels in decayed logs, and disconnected scales under 
most of the trees where search was made, and among all these failed to 
find a single bract which was not strongly exserted. And yet Miss 
1While this paper was passing through the press (July, 1899), Walter K, Fisher 
revisited Shasta. He found the firs heavily laden with cones, and although thou- 
sands of trees were examined he failed to find a single cone without the exserted 
bracts. 
Fig. 19.--Cone scales of (a) Abies shas- 
tensis and (vb) Abies concolor lowiana. 
