The two western hemlocks also have exceedingly graceful sprays and majestic forms, but they are less familiar to most of us and are not as widely distributed as the smaller eastern species.
One of the trees of widest geographical range in America is the red cedar, or red jumper, as it should more properly be called. This statement remains true notwithstanding the recent discovery that the form of red juniper common to certain parts of the Rockies is distinct from the eastern tree. Though of small size, except in the bottom lands of Arkansas and Texas, it possesses some excellent qualities and is useful in many ways. It is sometimes used in cabinet work, and is one of the best materials for fence posts. The variety that grows along the Florida coast furnishes the wood for the indispensable lead pencil.
The red juniper is at its best along the border of the forest or where it strays a short distance away. Its foliage is dark and bushy, and infinitely tender and soft in appearance. In the lower Appalachian region it forms a fine setting for the gorgeous drifts of dogwood and redbud that skirt the forest edges. It forms changeful and interesting groups on the rocky knolls and ledges. On our Jersey shores it has a tasteful way of gathering into little companies, just near enough to the forest to belong to it, composing scenes that are pleasant to remember. Singly, on the yellow sands, the young conical red juniper edges off well against the sky. In its old age the same tree looks gnarled and picturesque, but still beautiful, with its masses of small blue-gray berries.[3] Many of us remember it so by the edge of the ocean, and perhaps others, like myself, have allowed their imagination to drift and have fancied that it looked solemn and thoughtful, outlined against the pale-blue sky, listening to the swish and whisper of the sea.
Several cone-bearing trees of the Western States remain to be considered. These are the firs and spruces, which belong to the same class as the pines; and the big tree and redwood, relatives of the bald cypress.
The Douglas spruce, or red fir, is in reality neither a true spruce nor a fir, though it has some of the characteristics of each. It was discovered as long ago as 1795 by the famous explorer, Archibald Menzies. This species and a smaller one that grows on the arid mountains of southern California, with possibly a third that is found in Japan, constitute together the whole genus Pseudotsuga. But whatever its botanical peculiarities, the red fir is an important and exceedingly useful tree, especially for the purposes of practical and scientific forestry. Like the white pine it was planted long ago by those pioneers in forestry, the Germans, and has proved itself among them to be one of the few trees of foreign extraction that can be called successful.
When young, the red fir grows rapidly and symmetrically, and has a fresh, vigorous, healthy look. It then already possesses the bluish depth to its foliage that it preserves throughout life, a color that is comparable in its purity only to that of the white pine. In several of its other features, however, it changes with the lapse of years. It gradually loses the graceful lower boughs that feather to the ground in the young tree; its bark becomes rough and very thick; and its trunk develops into a tall, straight shaft that bears a long, spiry crown of striking symmetry, in which tier after tier of branches rises to the narrowing summit, ending some two or three hundred feet in air. This is its aspect in the favored regions of its growth, near the shores of Puget Sound and in the moist mountains of Washington and Oregon, where it once formed forests of extraordinary density and dark grandeur, portions of which are still preserved over this extensive territory.
Another important conifer is the lowland fir of the Pacific coast. All the silver firs, to which class this tree belongs, have distinct features in their foliage and a characteristic habit of growth, a description of which may enable the reader to picture to himself not only the lowland fir itself, but to form some conception of the esthetic value of the entire genus.
A Silver Fir at Middle Age