THE DOUGLAS. FIR 103 
and a half to. four inches long, and an inch or more in 
diameter and of a reddish-brown colour. «The ovuli- 
ferous scales are rounded, with slightly wavy margins, 
but the most striking: character is the bract-scale, 
which is longer than the ovuliferous and is three- 
lobed, the two lateral lobes diverging slightly and the 
central one prolonged into a rigid acute awn. 
This type of cone has been termed “ feathered.” The 
true Hemlock Spruces (Tsuga) have smaller cones, 
the bract-scales of which are not longer than the 
ovuliferous ones. The seeds of Psewdotsuga are small 
and winged. 
The resinous wood of the Douglas Spruce is largely 
used in its native area for fuel as well as for all kinds 
of carpentry, house-building, and engineering work. 
It is excellently adapted for the lower masts, yards, 
and bowsprits of sailing vessels, though inferior for 
topmasts, which are much exposed to friction, to 
Kauri Pine, or the Riga and Dantzic varieties of 
Pinus sylves‘tris. Puget Sound now exports it 
largely to South America, Australia, the Sandwich 
Islands, China and India, as well as to Great Britain. 
Time has hardly as yet permitted an adequate test of 
the durability of British-grown timber of this species, 
Its much more rapid growth here suggests consider- 
able inferiority as compared with the Oregon wood ; 
and yet it appears to compare favourably with Larch 
for such purposes as railway-sleepers. 
No exotic species of tree introduced within the 
last hundred years has, perhaps, attracted so much 
attention, from a utilitarian point of view, as the 
Douglas Fir, and that not only in Britain but. also 
