Page:Atlantis Arisen.djvu/244

 nowy sprays.

A broad-leaved evergreen is the arbutus (A. Menziesii ), commonly called laurel, which is found in the forests of the middle region from Puget Sound, north of the Columbia, to California and Mexico. In Spanish countries it is known as the madrono- tree. The trunk is from one foot to four feet in thickness, and when old is generally twisted. The bark undergoes a change of color annually; the old, dark, mahogany-colored bark scaling off, as the new, bright, cinnamon-colored one replaces it. The leaves are a long oval, of a bright, rich green, and glossy. It flowers in the spring, and bears scarlet berries in autumn resembling those of the mountain-ash. Altogether, it is one of the handsomest of American trees.

White oak, Quercus garryana, is common to all parts of West Oregon and Washington, but the Quercus Kelloggii, or black oak, is confined to the southern and middle counties of Oregon. Mountain-ash, Pyrus sambucifolia, a beautiful ornamental tree, is a native of the sub-alpine ranges. Chittim-wood Or bear- berry, Rhamnus purshiana, a shrubby tree growing in the valleys, furnishes a bark which is an article of commerce, being extensively used in the preparation of cathartic and tonic medicines.

A very peculiar and ornamental shrub is the holly-leaved barberry ( Berberis aquifolium ). It has rather a vining stalk, from two to eight feet high, with leaves shaped like holly leaves, but arranged in two rows, on stems of eight or ten ifiches in length. It is an evergreen, although it seems to cast off some of its foliage in the fall to renew it in the spring. While preparing to fall, the leaves take the most brilliant hues of any in the forest, and shine as if varnished. The fruit is a small cluster of very acid berries, of a dark, bluish purple, about the size of the wild grape, from which it takes its vulgar name of “ Oregon grape.”

In damp places away from the rivers grows the rose-colored spiraea ( S . Douglassii), in close thickets; it is commonly known as hardhack. Near such swamps are others of wild roses of several varieties, all beautiful.

I am not able to give-the names of all the numerous kinds of trees and shrubs which grow in close proximity in the forests of the Northwest, although I have been at some trouble to do so. Beginning at the river’s brink, we have willows, from the red cornel, whose crimson stems are so beautiful, to the coarse,