Page:Atlantis Arisen.djvu/243

 the Three

Sisters; Abies nobilis, inhabiting the mountains at an elevation of three thousand to five thousand feet; Abies amabilis, or lovely fir, the most beautiful of its genus; and Abies sub-alpina, a mountain tree. The. hemlocks are the mountain hemlock, known as Abies Williamsonii and Pattoniana. Sitka cedar, Cu- pressus nutkaensis, is found at the base of Mount Hood; and Libocedrus decurrens, thick-barked cedar, from Santiam River southward.

Of foliaceous trees not found on the coast, is the oak ( Quercus garryana ), which does not attain a very great size, not growing more than fifty feet high, except in rich, alluvial lands, where it attains fine dimensions. Another and smaller scrub-oak (Quercus Kelloggii) is common, and the wood is good for axe- helves, hoops, and similar uses. The wood of the larger variety is used for making staves, and the bark for tanning.

Of all the trees growing along water-courses, the Oregon ash (.Fraxinus Oregona ) is the most beautiful. In size it compares closely with the white maple. Its foliage is of a light yellow- green, the leaves being a narrow oval. Like the maple, it has clusters of whitish-yellow flowers, which add greatly to its grace and delicacy of coloring. The wood is fine-grained, and is useful for manufacturing purposes.

A little back from the river, yet quite near it, we find the Oregon dogwood ( Cornus Nuttalii). It is a much handsomer tree than the dogwood of the Atlantic States, making, when in full flower and in favored situations, as fine a display of broad, silvery-white blossoms as the magnolia of the Southern States. As an ornamental tree it cannot be surpassed, having a fresh charm each season, from the white blossoms of spring to the pink leaves of late summer and the scarlet berries of autumn. Its ordinary height is thirty or forty feet, but in moist ravines and thick woods it stretches up towards the light until it is seventy feet high.

A very ornamental wild cherry, peculiar to Oregon—a species of choke-cherry—is found near water-courses. The flowers are arranged in cylindrical racemes of the length of three or four inches, are white, and very fragrant. It flowers early in the spring, at the same time with the service-berry, when the woody thickets along the rivers are gleaming with their s