34 FOREST TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



Thickly mantled in light and ever-living green, softly 

 silver-lined, the grand horizoned round-tables of velvety 

 verdure, rising series above series, the branches only lessen- 

 ing their ample area near the summit, strikes the eye of the 

 stranger with amazement at the marvelous majestic port and 

 perfect elegance of symmetrical beauty. To the appreciative 

 eye, this noble fir is instinct with the air of magnanimity 

 and frankness, suggestive of the bluntness of honest candor 

 and altogether expressive of natural good nature, as we some- 

 times see where truth springs from a generous ground of 

 good, with manifest laudable purpose. Its language, indeed, 

 is manifold : listening with ears, seeing with eyes, or singing 

 as every bird sings, as the proverb saith, according to its own 

 bill, one may at least earnestly commend this noble sylvan 

 glory to the high consideration and enthusiastic praise of the 

 choicer songs, for none can ever cease to admire the Noble 

 Silver Fir. 



Our detailed notice of this typical tree will be brief, in 

 view of a fuller description of the more common variety of 

 Magnified. From Mount Shasta south, along the Sierras to 

 King's River, we have seen and collected specimens of the 

 cones, with protruding bracts; indeed, in some places they 

 appear to be the rule, in others exceptions, but these cones 

 were only very imperfectly covered — unlike the nob His 

 sketched and painted for Dr. Newberry. (See Vol. VI U. S. 

 R. R.. Reps., page 50.) There are many points of contrast 

 and comparison of more interest to the scientific than to the 

 general reader. 



The leaves of the fertile branches are shorter, flat-quad- 

 rangular, thickness not more than one half or nearly two 

 thirds the width, upwardly curved but not twisted, thickly 

 set close all round. Cones set, like birds upright, upon the 

 very short top branches, five to six inches long or high (or 

 even more), two to three inches in diameter, usually cylin- 

 droid-ovate, nearly mantled by protruding bracts, bent back 

 and so thickly set and closely pressed as often to nearly hide 

 the scales ; the outer part broad, rounded, or heart-form ; end 

 either fringed or cut-toothed, the middle awl-shaped, point 

 elongated. These tonguey bracts or scaly appendages, it is 

 claimed, never become shorter than the proper cone scales, 

 or so as to be hid from outside view. Seeds oblong or rather 

 obliquely subtrianguloid, base wedge-form, pale shining or 

 clayey hue, like the wings, cotyledons seven or eight. This 

 great Red Silver Fir, of Northern California, forms large 

 forests about the base of Mount Shasta, at from six to eight 

 thousand feet altitude, and said to extend north through the 

 Cascade Mountains to the Columbia. 



