158 
WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES. 
It was Archibald Menzies who first made it known to science, 
by means of herbarium specimens collected in 1792, when, as 
the companion of Vancouver, he visited the western coasts of 
North America. But Douglas, in his capacity of collector to 
the Royal Horticultural Society, landed at Fort Vancouver on 
the Columbia River in 1825, and not only sent home herbarium 
specimens, but seeds also, of this and several previously 
unknown Conifers. It was by means of these seeds that the 
Douglas Fir was introduced to Britain. It was already known 
by Lambert’s name of Abies taxifolia, but Dr. Bindley, a short 
time previous to Douglas’ untimely death, selected the tree as 
a suitable and enduring memorial of the enormous services 
Douglas had rendered, and named it Abies douglasii. Since 
then Carri^re has split up the old genus Abies and placed 
douglasii in the new genus Pseudotsuga. 
Under the most favourable natural conditions, as around 
Puget Sound and on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, 
the Douglas Fir grows to a height of 300 feet, with a girth of 
30 to 40 feet, but on the drier slopes of the Rocky Mountains it 
is not more than 100 feet high. In Colorado, forests of Douglas 
Fir are found at an elevation of 11,000 feet. The tree has not 
been sufficiently long established in this country to say what 
dimensions it will reach, though it appears to have taken kindly 
to Ireland and to Devon and Cornwall, where the rate of growth 
of young trees is about 30 inches per annum. There are plenty 
of trees in these islands, planted about the year 1834, which 
have reached or passed 100 feet, and there is no doubt that 
towards our western coasts this height will be greatly exceeded. 
Some of these trees have long since produced cones, and from 
their seeds many young trees have been raised. 
The Douglas Fir is of pyramidal outline, with the lowest 
branches bending to the ground under their weight of branchlets 
and leaves ; above, they spread horizontally, but the uppermost 
are more or less ascending. The branchlets are given off mostly 
