De I. VNER VEW D Forest Trees of the Pacific Slope

140
FOREST TREES OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE.
DIMENSIONs.-The height and diameter of these trees is popularly much overestimated.
Ordinary large trees are about 250 or 280 feet high, while exceptionally
large ones are from 300 to 330 feet, with diameters of from 12 to 17
feet, or occasionally 20 to 27 feet through, measured 8 to 10 feet above the
greatly swelled bases. Doubtless, exaggeration of actual dimensions is due to
inaccurately measuring some of the largest trees so as to include the immense
basal buttresses, which are properly no part of the trunk's thickness.
In youth the conspicuously conical trunks are densely clothed to the ground
with short, slender branches which curve and point upward sharply, forming
a broad, sharp-pointed pyramid. In this form it is extremely handsome and
graceful. It usually retains its long crown for from 200 to 300 years, except in
very crowded stands; afterwards the lower limbs gradually thin out and become
drooping, with a greater weight of dense foliage, as do also the middle crown
branches; only the uppermost ones trending upward. Later, and toward maturity,
the great trunks are clear of branches, except for a straggling branch
here and there, for from 80 to 125 feet or more. The crown has then lost all
semblance to its youthful form, and is a short, narrow, round-topped dome,
irregular in outline and somewhat open. The once straight leader has died
and lost its top, or the side branches have overtaken it and together round off
the crown. All of the branches have become enormously large, crooked, and
bent, some drooping and others horizontal, and all bearing dense masses of deep
blue-green foliage. The leaves (fig. 56), sharp pointed, longer, and more spreading
at their points on stouter main stems (fig. 55), overlap each other, covering
the slender, drooping sprays. The smaller twigs have shorter leaves, and the
larger have longer leaves. Longer, more spreading, but similarly arranged,
keenly pointed leaves are borne by seedlings from one to several years old.
The cones (fig. 56) are matured by the end of the second summer, when they are
dark bluish to olive green. They open slowly during early autumn, the thick
stiff cone scales parting only little, but sufficiently to liberate the thin, pale
brown, winged seed (fig. 56, a). About 4 to 6 seeds are borne under each cone
scale. Purplish grains of rosin-like substance fall from among the dried-out
cone scales, and impart a deep purple to water, as do also the cones themselves.
This substance contains 70 per cent of tannin, and is in this and other respects
the same as that frequently found exuded in hard masses in the burned hollows
of the trunks of these trees. Upon drying, after which most of the cones fall,
the cones are dull yellowish-brown, the inner portions of the scales, red-brown.
The minute narrowly winged seeds are not borne far from the parent tree.
Thousands of ripe cones are cut down, just before they open, by indefatigable
little pine squirrels. These are buried for winter food, many at the base of the
parent. When fire and storm or the ax lay the parent low, some of these seeds
spring up and replace it. Seed leaves, 5, five-eighths inch long, slender, and
pointed; scattered, shorter but similar, leaves succeed these, topped the following
year by sharp scale-like leaves one-fourth of an inch long. Succeeding
growth has the longer sharp form of adult leaves.
Wood of the bigtree is brilliant rose-purple red when first cut, later becoming
more and more dull purplish red-brown. It is very light (redwood is
much heavier), brittle, variable in grain from coarse (the growth of the first
400 or 500 years or more) to very fine-grained (the later growth). It contains,
as does the bark, a large amount of tannin, which doubtless has much to do
with its remarkable durability in an unprotected state. Prostrate trunks lie
for centuries on the ground with no sign of decay, except in the perishable
sapwood. The wood is widely useful for commercial purposes, passing in the
market as " redwood; " though lighter and more brittle than the coast redwood,
it is said to be not less valuable for lumber. As already stated (p. 139), so small