ABIES DOUGLASII. 
9 
was found in the greatest abundance, and at a much lower elevation than in the interior. There it was 
never met with at a lower elevation above the sea than 6000 or 7000 feet. On the Sierra Nevada, and 
especially on the slope next the Pacific, it occurs as low as 2000, and extends upwards to 6000 feet; but, as 
in the interior it did not reach higher than 10,000 feet, although the mountains might be a couple of 
thousand feet higher (leaving the more lofty position to be occupied by Pinus flexilis), so here it stops 
at about 6000 feet, although some of the peaks of the Sierra Nevada exceed 7000 feet in height. 
The space between the Sierra Nevada and the Aztec Pass, where it had been last previously met with 
by Dr Bigelow, is about 200 miles, as the crow flies ; and the Gila and Colorado flow down in the midst. 
Two ranges of hills, or mountains, as they may be more properly called—reaching as they do to an elevation 
the one of 5000 and the other of 6000 feet above the sea—occur between ; but Abies Douglasii was not 
found upon them, and even although these ranges should be connected with the Rocky Mountain ranges, 
still, if they nowhere reach a higher elevation than 6000 feet, it is not likely that it should be found upon 
them, seeing that in all the other localities in the interior it does not appear until more than that height 
above the sea. Supposing it not to do so, there would be left a blank between the Rocky Mountain habitats 
and those on the Sierra Nevada: thus preserving a continued interruption running north and south in the 
line of the Salt Lake Desert basins, between the interior, or Rocky Mountain Range, and the Coast Ranges. 
So far as the Coast Range is concerned, there is little doubt that the tree runs, on the one hand, north¬ 
wards from Los Angelos, the point where it was touched by Dr Bigelow, to Santa Cruz, which is at the 
gates of San Francisco, and on the same side of the bay; and, on the other hand, southwards, into the 
peninsula of South California. We know that it is found in abundance at Santa Cruz, and the city of San 
Francisco is said to be largely indebted to it for its existence, so much as a fourth of it being built on piles 
made of the timber of the Douglas Spruce, driven 10 to 15 feet into the ground. We have no note of any 
spot on the Coast Range where it has been observed south of Santa Cruz or Monterey, until we reach Los 
Angelos, 300 miles farther south ; but as we find it plentiful at Los Angelos, and extending both north¬ 
wards and southwards, we think that this is a case where we may safely trust to general report, and assume 
that it extends all along the Coast Range for these 300 miles; and that the reason why we have no note of 
its occurrence there, is simply that the district has not been visited by any botanist who has made his 
observations public. From the United States Mexican Boundary Report, we know that it occurs at San 
Diego, which is nearly 100 miles to the south of Los Angelos. How much farther south on the Coast 
Range the tree grows, we do not know. Probably, when the altitude of the mountain gets below 2000 feet, 
it will cease. If this is so, it will not extend far into Lower California. 
To which type of the Douglas Spruce do those found on the Coast Range south of San Francisco belong? 
There seems no reason to doubt that they all belong to the tall type of Oregon. As to those found at Santa 
Cruz, Hartweg (. Hort . Soc. Joum ., vol. ii., 124) says: “Some fine trees of Abies Douglasii are found in the 
mountains of Santa Cruz; they do not form masses of themselves, but are thinly scattered among the Red¬ 
wood trees ( Taxodium sempervire 7 ts), with which they vie in size;" and he has just before mentioned that the 
Redwood trees there average 200 feet in size, and that one called “the giant of the forest,” was 270 feet in 
height. In the vicinity of San Francisco Bay it grows to a large size, being found on the northern slopes of 
hills in Marin County, in little groves, in company with the Redwoods. As to those near Los Angelos and 
San Diego, on the coast of California, Dr Bigelow, after specially mentioning that the trees found at the 
places he mentions in the Rocky Mountains, grow only from 90 to 120 feet in height, immediately adds, 
that “ in California it is found of a much larger size, frequently attaining the height of 200 feet or more, 
and from 6 to 9 feet in diameter.” There is in the Kew Herbarium a specimen from Dr Bigelow, marked as 
from “California, near the 35 0 parallel.” This must be part of the collection made on the Expedition on 
that parallel, from which we have taken the stations above mentioned, and collected, no doubt, on the Sierra 
Nevada, near Los Angelos. It, however, does not tell much; the leaves seem likest those of the northern 
type; the cone, on the other hand, is a small specimen; but in points where there is so little difference, the 
identity of the form cannot be determined by individual specimens; it must be by the general character of 
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