In the foot-hills of the southern part of the 
state are a few trees of the Colorado White 
Fir (A. concolor), with their exceedingly 
whitened bark, leaves, and cones, otherwise 
much like the White Fir of California, with 
which it is classed by some authors. 
Last, as well as prettiest, of our firs let 
us study for a moment the most singular of 
all our trees, the Needle-cone Fir (A. ven- 
usta), of the Santa Lucia Mountains, near the 
south boundary line of Monterey County. It is 
a tree with its limbs so short that the tree has 
the appearance of a narrow pinnacle or column, 
often fifty or more feet high. The cones are 
oblong, three inches long, the bracts between 
the scales terminating in strong, sharp needles 
two inches long, which, curving downward, 
inclose the cone in a net-like envelope. The 
leaves, too, are out of the ordinary state, be¬ 
ing very long—two inches—and one-eighth 
inch wide, the largest fir leaves known. Very 
singularly the locality of this fir was discov¬ 
ered by the earliest explorer of this coast, 
the indefatigable David Douglas, in 1830; but 
so deeply secluded are they in the confusing 
ramifications of the Coast Range, and so steep 
—almost inaccessible—are the mountain cliffs 
to which they cling, that few persons have 
seen these wonderful trees, not above a dozen 
persons all told, although their home is but 
a few miles from the populous metropolis of 
the Pacific Slope, and quite near our two uni¬ 
versities, with their thousands of students. 
What might have been done at any time 
all these years was developed last summer, 
when a botanist of the University of Cali¬ 
fornia explored the region thoroughly, and 
discovered some four new groves, one of 
them quite extensive, of this exceedingly lovely 
tree. 
