34 
BOTANY. 
where, as sometimes found, it grows on open and higher ground, it adopts the general habit of 
the trees of the country, and spreads out into a wide and tolerably compact head. The tree of 
which the portrait is given (PI. II) is of this character ; it is growing on the hanks of Feather 
river, a few miles above its mouth, and situated on the alluvial bottom hut some 40 feet above 
the stream, and a little separated from the belt of timber—principally sycamores—which line 
its banks. This tree had a diameter of trunk of over 6 feet, an altitude of about 100 feet, and 
a spread of branches nearly equal to its height, constituting one of the noblest specimens of 
vegetation I have ever seen. 
The leaf of the Mexican sycamore, in form, color and texture, is considerably different from 
that of its eastern representative. It is deeply cut, as represented in the figure, and is darker 
green and smoother than that of P. occidentals. The fruit is also in racemes of three to six, 
instead of being solitary, as in that species. 
The hark is whiter than I have ever seen it in P. occidentalis, being sometimes as white as 
milk on all parts of the trunk and branches. The dark, polished, and digitate leaves contrast 
finely with the white bark, and give to the tree a much more tropical look than that of our 
species. 
The figure given by Nuttall (1. c.) represents the leaf as pubescent or tomentose. I think 
that is never its character, except when very young ; at least in different parts of California 
where I saw the tree the foliage constantly exhibited the characters which I have described. 
The Mexican sycamore is apparently more southern in its habit than most of the trees with 
which it is associated in California, the centre of its range being, probably, about the southern 
line of that State. We found it bordering the Sacramento river and its tributaries in all parts 
of the Sacramento valley, but did not meet with it further north. 
The wood of the sycamore of the west, like that of the common species and that of most of 
the decotyltdonous trees with which it is associated, is very brittle. Of its want of tenacity, 
we had a striking illustration when encamped under the tree represented on the plate. 
Our beds were spread on the ground under its branches, nearly touching each other. During 
the evening—a fresh breeze blowing, but not a high wind—we were warned by a cracking over¬ 
head that danger was impending, and had just time to “stand from under,” when a branch 
about eight inches in diameter came crashing down directly where we had been lying. 
Pinus contorta. (Plate Y.) The twisted pine. 
P. contorta. Dougl. in Lond. Encycl. of Trees, p. 975 ,fig. 915. 
P. contorta. Loud. Arboret , 4, p. 2292, figs. 2210 and 2211. 
P. inops, (P. distorta, Dougl.) Rook. Flor. Bor.-Amer. 2 , p. 161. 
Description. —A tree of moderate or small size, of a conical, and frequently very strict figure; 
branches numerous, small; leaves in twos, short, yellow-green in color; cone generally ovoid 
acute, sometimes spherical, three-quarters of an inch to one and a quarter inch in length, per¬ 
sistent for several years ; scales bearing short and acute spines ; seeds roundish, dark ; scale 
elongated entire. 
We first met with this pine on the banks of Canoe creek, a tributary of Pit river, in northern 
California. After leaving that locality we saw no more of it till we reached the banks of Kla¬ 
math river above Upper Klamath lake. Here it was abundant, and continued common to the 
Columbia. 
On Canoe creek it grows in the natural meadows bordering the stream, forming a moderately 
