Nor Is There Room In A Work Like This For
Anything Like A Complete Description Of It, Or Of The Others I Have
Just Mentioned.
Of the three firs, one (Picea grandis)[26], grows
near the coast and is one of the largest trees in the forest,
sometimes attaining a height of two hundred and fifty feet.
The
timber, however, is inferior in quality and not much sought after
while so much that is better is within reach. One of the others (P.
amabilis, var. nobilis) forms magnificent forests by itself at a
height of about three thousand to four thousand feet above the sea.
The rich plushy, plumelike branches grow in regular whorls around the
trunk, and on the topmost whorls, standing erect, are the large,
beautiful cones. This is far the most beautiful of all the firs. In
the Sierra Nevada it forms a considerable portion of the main forest
belt on the western slope, and it is there that it reaches its
greatest size and greatest beauty. The third species (P. subalpina)
forms, together with Abies Pattoniana, the upper edge of the
timberline on the portion of the Cascades opposite the Sound. A
thousand feet below the extreme limit of tree growth it occurs in
beautiful groups amid parklike openings where flowers grow in
extravagant profusion.
The pines are nowhere abundant in the State. The largest, the yellow
pine (Pinus ponderosa), occurs here and there on margins of dry
gravelly prairies, and only in such situations have I yet seen it in
this State.
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