How to Tell the Trees 
No. i. THE CONE-BEARING FAMILY 
CONIFER JE 
By J. G. Lemmon 
Common trees throughout the earth are rec¬ 
ognized by certain prominent characters— 
mostly, those of leaf and fruit. We know the 
oak at sight, by its usually large leaves, and 
especially by its peculiar fruit—the acorn. 
We know the poplar by its heart-shaped leaf 
and cotton-bearing seeds, the maple with its 
large-toothed leaves and double-winged seeds, 
the ash with its pinnate leaves and single- 
oared seeds. 
We Californians have learned to tell at a 
glance, the wonderful Madrona by its mag¬ 
nolia-like leaves, its red berries, and partic¬ 
ularly, its naked, red limbs. The clean, white- 
barked Sycamore with its great palmate leaves 
and its hanging strings of button-balls, is at 
once detected, and the spicy-leaved California 
Laurel with its large bright-green berries. 
All these and many more large-leaved, usu¬ 
ally low-land trees are well known; but they 
do not compose the mass of our forests; they 
do not cover our coast ranges nor our lofty 
Sierra Nevada. They do but little of the 
work of sponging the moisture out of the 
overrunning ocean winds and distilling it in 
rain or showering it in snow upon the moun- 
(17) 
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