THE RED FIR.
The magnificent red fir is called by John Muir "the noblest of its race." In its splendid shaft that reaches two and fifty feet in height, and a trunk diameter of seven feet, there is a symmetry and perfection of finish throughout that is achieved by no other tree. One above another in graduated lengths the branches spread in level collars, the oldest drooping on the ground, the rest horizontal, their framework always five main branches that carry luxuriant flat plumes of silvery needles. Each leaf is almost equally four-sided, ribbed above and below, with pale lines on all sides, so wide as to make the new growth silvery throughout the season. Later these leaves become blue-green, and persist for about ten years. Only on the lower side of the branch are the leaves two ranked.
The bark of this fir tree is covered with dark brown scales, deeply divided into broad rounded ridges, broken by cross fissures when old. Out toward the tips of the branches the bark is silvery white. In mid-June the flowers appear, the staminate in profuse clusters against the silvery leaf-linings, bright red, on the under sides of the platforms. It is a blind or stupid person who can travel in fir woods and fail to notice this wonderful flower pageant, that may be viewed by merely looking upward. The pistillate flowers, greenish yellow, tipped with pink, are out of sight as a rule, among the needles in the tree-tops.
They ripen into tall cylindrical cones, six to eight inches long and half as wide, that fall to pieces at maturity, discharging their broad thin scales with the purple irides c.:nt winged seeds.
Pure forests of this splendid fir tree are found in southern Oregon among the Cascade Mountains, between five and seven thousand feet above the sea. It is the commonest species in the forest belt of the Sierra Nevada, between elevations of six thousand and nine thousand feet. From northern California, it follows the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, climbing to ten thousand feet in its southernmost range. A variety, Shctstensis, Lemm., is the red fir with bright yellow fringed bracts on its stout cones. This ornament upon its fruits seems to be the chief distinguishing character of the form which occurs with the parent species on the mountains in Oregon and northern California, and recurs in the southern Sierra Nevada.
The best defense of this superb red.fir is the comparative worthlessness of its soft, weak wood. Coarse lumber for cheap buildings, packing eases and fuel makes the only demands upon it. In European parks it is success fully grown as an ornamental tree, and has proved hardy in eastern Massachusetts.