22 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



genus on the Pacific Coast, is often 60 feet high or more, and its large 

 white involucrai bracts are conspicuous in the dark shade of the 

 conifers. My photograph (fig. 13) is of a tree on Vancouver Island and 

 will give some conception of the extraordinary profusion of its blossom. 

 I am indebted to Mr. F. W. Godsal for this picture. In autumn it is 

 equally beautiful from the gorgeous crimson and orange of its foliage 

 and fruits. Of conifers, Thuya gigantea is of immense size where the 

 alluvial soil of the valleys is deep, but you do not see it high above 

 sea-level in the Olympics. Abies grandis is the commonest and the 

 largest of the silver firs ; strangely enough, I never saw Abies amabilis 

 here, though Sargent speaks of it as occurring throughout the range. 

 Douglas fir is universal and taller than any other tree. I have a photo- 

 graph of it showing an unbroken stretch rising above a little log hotel 

 on Lake Cushman, where the trout run big. The Western Hemlock 

 firs, with their graceful nodding tops, are never quite so large in girth 

 as the Douglas, but surpass them in the amazing way they reproduce 

 themselves wherever the seed finds a foothold. Tsuga Hookeriana, A bies 

 subalpina (fig. 14), and Finns contorta occur fairly generally at the timber- 

 line. The great ' sword fern ' Aspidium munitum throws its fronds 

 up to two yards long in all the moister spots, and the maidenhair of 

 America, Adiantum pedatum, clings to faces of the rocks. 



There are several small trees which deserve mention : Mains rivu- 

 laris, Prunus emarginata (the fruit of neither is beautiful, but I never 

 saw them in blossom), Sambucus melanocarpa, and 5. racemosa, 

 Nuttallia cerasiformis, Crataegus Douglasii, Amelanchier alnifolia, 

 producing the " saavis " berries of the Indians, several species of 

 willow, Corylus calij arnica, and Taxns brevifolia, the last two prac- 

 tically the same as our hazel and yew respectively. Rhamnus 

 Pnrshiana is common as a small tree in the southern valleys of 

 the region ; the bark provides the cascara sagrada well known to 

 pharmacists. I got a considerable quantity of the seed of this and of 

 Rhamnus californica a few years ago, which was widely distributed 

 from Kew. It is a plant of the easiest cultivation almost anywhere 

 in Great Britain ; perhaps my effort may result in a new industry, 

 as the native supply of the bark is being rapidly diminished in 

 the more accessible country. The barks of both species from my 

 seed seem to possess the same virtues as that of the native-grown 

 trees. Acer glabrum, which I never saw larger than a many-stemmed 

 large bush, will probably be distinguished by botanists as a species 

 distinct from the small tree to be found in the drier valleys of the 

 interior hitherto identified with it, but in several respects differing 

 from the coast plant. 



Western Washington is pre-eminently a land of shrubs ; there are 

 blaeberries so high that you can gather the fruit above your head 

 as you ride through a thicket of them. Vaccinium parvifolium, V. 

 ovalifolinm, and the evergreen V. ovatum all bear fruit so profusely 

 that the Indians find a coarse wooden comb the easiest way of gather- 

 ing it, to be sold later to the greengrocers of Tacoma and Seattle. 



