BOTANY. 
55 
Description .—A tree of very large size ; leaves narrowly linear, one inch long, furrowed above, 
carinated below, with indexed margin, slightly glaucous beneath; cones pendulous, long-ovate 
acute, scales few, large, lax, rounded entire; bracts elongated, strap-shaped, projecting 
beyond the margin of the scale, terminating in three points, of which the middle one is largest; 
seed elliptical, acute, nearly half the length of the wing ; wing pellucid, margins entire. 
This was one of the first, and is now one of the best, known of the trees of the west. From 
its magnitude and abundance on the Columbia, it was the first to attract the attention of the 
botanists who have visited Oregon, and was early introduced into England, where it is now 
extensively cultivated. Full descriptions have been given of it by Douglas, Lindley, Loudon, 
Nuttall, &c., which are, in the main, accurate. Sabine was in error, however, in supposing 
that the cones were erect, as in all the species they are pendant. Futtall also represents the 
bracts as reflexed. They are not so, however, but always project towards the point of the cone. 
The figure given by Nuttall does not well represent the cones in any stage, as will be seen by 
comparing that figure with the one now given, which was taken from a perfect specimen, of 
which I brought a large number. 
The size of A. Douglasii has not been over stated. It is, in fact, one of the grandest of the 
group of giants which combine to form the forests of the far west. I saw several individuals 
of this species which had a diameter of ten feet four feet from the ground, and an altitude of three 
hundred. As it usually grows in its favorite habitat, about the mouth of the Willamette, it forms 
forests of which the density can hardly be appreciated without being seen. The trees stand rela¬ 
tively as near each other, and the trunks are as tall and slender, as the canes in a cane-brake. 
In this case the foliage is confined to a tuft at the top of the tree, the trunk forming a cylindrical 
column as straight as an arrow, and almost without branches, for two hundred feet. The 
amount of timber on an acre of this forest very much exceeds that on a similar area in the 
tropics, or in any part of the world I have visited. Were it not that vegetable tissue will 
burn readily, the immense mass of it which encumbers the surface of an ordinary farm on the 
banks of the Columbia, would bid defiance to any efforts that one man could make for its re¬ 
moval during the term of his natural life. 
To show how slender Douglas spruce ordinarily grows, I will give the measurements of a 
tree, which seemed of only moderate size, lying near one of our camps in the Willamette valley. 
It was six feet in diameter across the stump. Two hundred and sixteen feet of the trunk lay 
upon the ground, and the upper extremity was fifteen inches in diameter where it had been 
burned off. 
The wood, like that of most of the spruces, is harder and less pleasant to work than that of 
the pines. It is, however, very stiff, makes excellent planking, joist, and timber, and for 
these purposes it is very largely used both in Oregon and California. The rings of annual 
growth are distinct and widely separated, and the tree is evidently of rapid growth. Douglas 
spruce covers the western slope of the Cascade mountains and the banks of the Columbia. It 
extends northward on the Sierra Fevada to the north line of Mexico. 
