6 
PINETUM BRITANNICUM. 
Sound, by Menzies, and all who have since explored the island speak with enthusiasm of the enormous trees 
which clothe it, down to the water’s edge. 
British Columbia, Washington Territory, and Oregon, may each be divided, in a general way, into three 
longitudinal strips of territory: i. That between the Pacific and Cascade range of mountains, which has a 
moist climate and is a forest region, and includes another range known as the Coast range; 2. That between 
the Cascade range and the Rocky Mountains, which is a dry, unfertile, and treeless region; 3. The Rocky 
Mountains themselves, the climate of which, again, is moist, although less so than that of the coast region. 
So far as regards the coast region lying westward of the Cascade Mountains, we know, from the con¬ 
current testimony of every explorer who has written upon it—Douglas, Jeffrey, Lyell, Brown, &c.—with 
popular confirmation to any amount, that from beyond Fraser River, in the north, to Mount Shasta and 
Scots Mountain in the south, it is more or less covered with dense forests, of which the chief ingredient is 
the typical Douglas Spruce. It does not occupy the whole of this breadth, however. Dr Cooper tells us 
(loc. cit .), that while it forms the mass of forest growth on the dry gravelly soils, from an elevation of pro¬ 
bably 3000 feet on the Cascade range, entirely across the valley to the summits of the Coast range (west of 
which it is almost entirely replaced by other species), it is not found at all on banks subject to inundation. 
The dry and treeless district between the Cascade range and the Rocky Mountain ranges, although 
apparently a hollow, is in reality an elevated plateau, lying between the still more elevated ranges—a plateau 
which is a continuation of the deserts farther to the south, lying between the Sierra Nevada (which is the 
southern continuation of the Cascade range) and the Rocky Mountains. 
One of the United States Pacific Railroad Exploring Expeditions traversed this region, and the 
Reports (vol. xii., part 2) contain lists by Dr Cooper: 1. Of the plants collected east of the Rocky Mountains, 
in which Abies Douglasii does not occur; 2. Of those collected from the summit of the Cascade Moun¬ 
tains, eastward to the Upper Columbia River, and northward to the 49 0 of N. lat., and in this list, too, A. 
Douglasii is absent; and 3. Of those collected west of the Cascade Mountains, in which it is included. So 
far as these lists go, it would appear not to occur east of the Cascade Mountains. 
But Dr Lyell also gives an account of the botanical products of the northern part of this intermediate 
land, viz., that part of it lying to the east of Washington Territory and British Columbia and south of 50° 
N. lat. and north of the Columbia River, which is very much the same as the route traversed by the United 
States Exploring Expeditions (which furnished the materials of the list above referred to) ; and he tells us, 
that although this intermediate district is generally without trees, patches of them occur here and there in the 
ravines, or on the banks of lakes and streams; and A bies Menziesii is specified by him as one of the com¬ 
monest of the trees there found, and also as being found on the Galton Range of the Rocky Mountains. Pie 
does not positively say that A. Doitglasii is also found there, but he leads us to infer that it is so, for in speak¬ 
ing of the general distribution of the trees over the whole region he says, immediately after noting the above 
localities of A. Menziesii , that A. Douglasii is usually found along with it; and adds, that it never attains 
the same proportions east of the Cascade Mountains that it does on the other side. Hence it should follow 
that it does occur east of these mountains; but Dr Lyell may not have paid particular attention to the limits 
of its occurrence, and his allusion to its small size east of the Cascade Mountains may possibly only be to 
the east flank of these mountains themselves; for he mentions that it becomes stunted and dwarfish on ex¬ 
posed prominences and at great elevations ; “ it ceases to be common at an altitude of about 5500 feet above 
the sea; but scrubby specimens were seen on the Cascades, nearly 2000 feet higher than that.” Unfortunately, 
none of the specimens brought home by Dr Lyell, and preserved at Kew, are from such stunted trees or ex¬ 
posed situations. Those preserved are from the valley of the Columbia ; and we are thus unable to determine 
a most important and interesting question, viz., whether these stunted specimens have the same characters 
as the Mexican form. M. Bauerman, economic geologist, who accompanied an expedition into the same 
regions in 1859, recently informed us that at Chief Mountain Lake he found the Douglas Fir creeping along 
the ground like a Lycopodium wherever it was cut by the wind. It there crosses the ridge of the Rocky 
Mountains, but does not descend into the plains. 
There 
