Manual of the Trees of North America (Exclusive of Mexico) 2nd ed.Sargent, Charles Sprague
Science
Manual of the Trees of North America (Exclusive of Mexico) 2nd ed.
Sargent, Charles Sprague
Trees -- North America
Leaves on leading shoots ovate, long-pointed, often conspicuously
glandular on the back, frequently ¼′ long, on lateral branchlets ovate,
apiculate, without glands or obscurely glandular-pitted, usually not
more than ⅛′ long, mostly persistent 2—5 years. Flowers about 1/12′
long, dark brown. Fruit ripening early in the autumn, clustered near the
ends of the branches, much reflexed, ½′ long, with thin leathery scales,
conspicuously marked near the apex by the free border of the
flower-scale furnished with short stout erect or recurved dark mucros;
seeds often 3 under each fertile scale, rather shorter than their
usually slightly unequal wings about ¼′ long.
A tree, frequently 200° high, with a broad gradually tapering buttressed
base sometimes 15° in diameter at the ground and in old age often
separating toward the summit into 2 or 3 erect divisions, short
horizontal branches, usually pendulous at the ends, forming a dense
narrow pyramidal head, and slender much compressed branchlets often
slightly zigzag, light bright yellow-green during their first year, then
cinnamon-brown, and after the falling of the leaves, lustrous and dark
reddish brown often tinged with purple, the lateral branchlets 5′—6′
long, light green and lustrous on the upper surface, somewhat paler on
the lower surface, turning yellow and falling generally at the end of
their second season. Bark bright cinnamon-red, ½′—¾′ thick, irregularly
divided by narrow shallow fissures into broad ridges rounded on the back
and broken on the surface into long narrow rather loose plate-like
scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, brittle, coarse-grained, easily
split, dull brown tinged with red; largely used in Washington and Oregon
for the interior finish of buildings, doors, sashes, fences, shingles,
and in cabinet-making and cooperage. From this tree the Indians of the
northwest coast split the planks used in the construction of their
lodges, carved the totems which decorate their villages, and hollowed
out their great war canoes, and from the fibres of the inner bark made
ropes, blankets, and thatch for their cabins.
Distribution. Singly and in small groves on low moist bottom-lands or
near the banks of mountain streams, from the sea-level to elevations of
6000° in the interior, from Baranoff Island, Alaska, southward along the
coast ranges of British Columbia, western Washington, and Oregon, where
it is the most abundant and grows to its largest size, and through the
California-coast region to Mendocino County, ranging eastward along many
of the interior ranges of British Columbia, northern Washington, Idaho,
and Montana to the western slope of the continental divide.
Often cultivated as an ornamental tree in the parks and gardens of
western and central Europe where it has grown rapidly and vigorously,
and occasionally in the middle and north Atlantic states.
11. CUPRESSUS L. Cypress.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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