ways, to reach a height where it could get purer and fresher air to breathe. The character of the tree, as
developed in this country, is different. Here, as in Oregon, it is obviously going to become an immense
tree; but it spreads out its branches on every side freely and widely. In fact, this is one of its most striking
characters. Its great branches look like large trees growing out of the stem on every side. An examination
of our portrait plate of AbiesDouglasii will shew that its character is quite that which we describe. It is
the same, we believe, with every large Douglas Spruce in this country. All these, to be sure, stand by
themselves, with plenty of air and space in which to grow and spread. Those who wish to have veiy tall
slender spars fit for masts must obviously plant them closely, and not thin them much.
The tree is of rapid growth in British Columbia, Oregon, and all along the coast; the rings of annual
growth being distinct and widely separated.
All that we have above said relates to the typical form of the tree, as found in the coast regions lying
between the Pacific and the Cascade range and its southern continuation, the Sierra Nevada. There is
another form found in the interior, on the Rocky Mountains, and in Mexico, which Roezl has proposed to
name Abies Lindleyana; and we have found the greatest difficulty in making up our minds whether to include
the latter with the typical form above described or treat it as a separate and distinct species. At last,
feeling ourselves unable to specify characters which would enable one to distinguish them with anything
like certainty, we have had recourse to the compromise of treating A. Lindleyana as a sub-species. The
differences between them may be contrasted as follows, viz.:
Bark of branchlets usually not pubescent.
Pulvini absent or very faint.
Cone k u e r .
Scales larger, less convex, and with their felt-like texture smooth
and without or only with slight traces of longitudinal stria;.
Bracts thinner, and with all the terminal cusps very long and sharp.
So far as our degeneration goes this is more especially
characteristic of the trees in British Columbia and Oregon, and
less so of those in California.
Tree commonly reaching the height of between 200 and 300 feet.
Timber good.
Habitat confined to district next the Pacific.
Sub-sp. ABIES LINDLEYANA.
Bark of branchlets pubescent
Pulvini distinct
Cone smaller, narrower [fig. 2 3 J
Scales smaller and more convex, and with distinct longitudinal
Bracts usually thicker, stifler, and more pergaminous, the terminal
middle cusp comparatively shorter, the two lateral ones
generally terminating in a short jagged point or rounded off,
although often also acute, but then usually shorter than those
of A. Douglasii.
Tree not exceeding 80 or 100 feet in height.
Timber inferior.
Habitat in the Rocky Mountains and Mexico.
The differences in the bracts of the scales of the cone are contrasted in the following figures, viz., 24
and 25, which are those of Abies Douglasii proper, and figs. 26, 27, 28, and 29, which are those of the subspecies
A. Lindleyana (all both of their natural size and magnified).
The most important of the above distinctions, and that on which we have chiefly
gone in separating the sub-species from the species, are the last three, and especially the
fact that the different forms, so far as we yet
know, are limited to different districts. Mad
they been mixed up together in the same forests
and the same country, we should not have
F'conc o?r
stb-^d™lf proposed to treat them as other than varieties, vj, \ / / f 1
co. ' ' Some botanists do not admit that geographical HI
distribution should be regarded as of any weight in determining
species. If, when mixed, specimens cannot be distinguished with
certainty from each other, they hold that there is only one species.
LSndlcyana fn
We do not go so far: we think every thing should be taken into account: geographical distribution, as well
as habit, port, and general appearance.
On
On these points there is here a great similarity to the Cedars ; and if we admit them to rank as species,
which we have done, we cannot well see how we should deal differently with these forms of Abies Douglasii.
As with the latter, each Cedar is found in a distinct geographical locality, to which it is limited. As in it,
each type of Cedar has a different habit or port of its own, and two of them at least (the Deodar and the
Cedar of Lebanon) have, like them, a different quality of timber; but the two Douglas Spruces are more
close to each other, and the geographical habitats less distant, and possibly touching each other at one extremity
: points of difference which we endeavour to indicate by ranking the one as a sub-species of the other.
Besides the species or variety, Abies Lindleyana, there are other forms of the Douglas Spruce, (not
horticultural varieties, or nurserymen's species—which are the product of cultivation, and which are often
merely instances of individual constitution—but well recognised differences of character) occurring in their
native forests: in British Columbia, for instance, there is a variety known as the Black Fir—not the tree
to which the name Black Fir is usually applied, which is Abies Menziesii, but a form of A. Douglasii.
This is probably the dark green variety known to nurserymen as A. Douglasii taxifolia of Loudon and
Drummond (not of Gordon), which is spoken of by Dr Lindley, from Douglas's introduction or information
(" Penny Cyclopaedia," i., p. 32), as of so deep a green that it would seem as if it were more nearly one of the
Yews than the Spruces. There is a great deal of confusion among nurserymen about this variety, some, in
accordance with the information given by Mr Gordon in his "Pinetum," supposing it to be the Mexican
form. But that author, in his description of the variety, has mixed up the characters of the Oregon and
Mexican forms, as well as the localities themselves, so that no dependence can be placed on his statement.
The Douglas Spruce in Columbia is generally known by the name of Red Fir.
There is another Fir described by Humboldt under the name of Abies hirtella, the foliage of which is
very similar to that of the Douglas Spruce, but its leaves are acute instead of obtuse. Its cone is not known.
Geographical Distribution.—The statement regarding the range of Abies Douglasii given by Sir W.
Hooker ("Flora Boreale Americana," p. 163), on the authority of Douglas, was, that the principal part of the
gloomy forests of North-West America, in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains, and throughout the interior
skirting those mountains, was composed of it.
Additional information has shewn that this statement is not correct; and if we are to separate the species
into two sections it will be still less so. As it is in a great measure on their geographical distribution that it
must depend whether this should be done or not, we shall, by a careful examination of all the localities
recorded, and of the character of the trees found in them, endeavour to discriminate the districts in which
each kind is found; and while thus obtaining an accurate definition of the range of every thing bearing the
appearance of Abies Douglasii, as well as of that of each of its varieties, secure additional data for determining
whether there are more than one species or variety or not. As such data are comparatively valueless,
unless, along with the information where the tree is found, it be also noted where it is not found, we shall
specify both as far as we can, and at same time indicate those portions of the country which have not been
yet examined, so that they may not be unwarrantably added either to the one or the other.
Beginning at Sitcha, the northernmost point of the west coast of America, which has been examined by
botanists (except the icy regions where it does not occur), the species does not grow there; at least we find that
Bongard, who published an account of its botany as explored by Mertens ("Memoires de l'Academie
Imperiale de St Petersburg," 6 ser., vol. ii., "Sciences", p. 119), does not mention it.* Of the country lying
between Sitcha and Fraser's River we know little or nothing botanically. The first place to the south of
Sitcha, or where we get upon known ground, is British Columbia, including Vancouver's Island, where the
tree is found in great abundance. Vancouver's Island is full of it. It was first discovered there, in Nootka
Sound,
* The whole of the Conifers mentioned by Bongard as found by Mertens in Sitcha are.—Juniperus nana [perhaps conlorla, which is the western
representative of inops]; Pinus Canadensis [perhaps one of the western Hemlock Spruces, as Abies Albertiana, or Ilookcriana, or PaUomana\;
Finns inops, Pinus Merlensiaua, Pinus Sitchensis [perhaps Menziesii]; and Thuja excelsa.
[ 29 ] c