International Excursion in America. 269 
After a rest and breakfast at the Medford Hotel, one of those 
luxurious and at the same time simple establishments for which the 
Far West is justly famed, we started in seven automobiles—most 
generously placed at our disposal and nearly all driven by their 
owners—on the 85-mile trip to Crater Lake. Medford is situated 
in the centre of the Rogue River Valley, a district which has recently 
experienced rapid development and astounding prosperity, mainly 
from its extensive pear orchards. 
Much of the uncultivated parts of the valley plain are covered 
with a very stony soil supporting a poor growth of grasses such as 
Hordeum and Aristida, and locally known as “desert.” These 
stony areas are probably the outwash from old glacial streams. 
Here and there are isolated trees of Quercus Garryana , a deciduous 
but rather leathery-leaved oak. Near the beginning of the foothills, 
an open scrub or “ chaparral ” begins, with Ceanothus cordulatus 
dominant, Avctostaphylos glauca abundant and occasional trees of 
Quercus Garryana. As the foothills are entered single trees of the 
yellow pine, Pinus ponderosa, appear among the chaparral, and these 
increase in number but do not form anything like a closed woodland. 
The scrub thickens and other shrubs appear, such as the beautiful 
Arbutus Menziesii and various herbs, such as the aromatic Eremo- 
carpus setigera and species of Salvia. A marked feature of this open 
woodland is the great development of masses of lichen (Usnea and 
others) and mosses which appear on the tree-trunks and branches 
These are doubtful due to the wet and comparatively mild winters 
of the district. 
At a somewhat higher altitude (about 2,500 feet) the Douglas 
Fir (Pseudotsuga mucronald) appears and soon increases in 
abundance, “ chaparral ” at the same time disappearing. The 
Douglas Fir does not, however, dominate the forests as it does in 
the Rockies or in the northern Cascades. The forests around 
Prospect, for instance, half-way up from Medford to Crater Lake 
consist of yellow pine and Douglas mixed with Sugar Pine (P. 
Lambertiana )—whose enormous cones, often 18 inches in length, 
lying on the ground, are a conspicuous feature beneath the trees— 
Tsuga heteropliylla, Libocedrus decurrens, Abies concolor, Taxus 
brevifolia and the Lodge-pole pine (P. Mnrrayana or contorta), the last 
forming, higher up towards Crater Lake, pure stands of uniform age, 
springing up where the original forest has been burned. The 
undergrowth in the denser portions of the forest is formed of Cornus 
pubescens, Corylus rostrata, Castanopsis sempervirens, Arctostaphylos 
