Distribution
On the west coast of North America it extends southwards from south-eastern Alaska, where it forms the greater part of the great coast forest, which reaches from sea-level up to about 2000 feet, and is associated with Menzies’s spruce.
In British Columbia it is very abundant on the coast, and extends as far inland as the heavy rainfall reaches up the valley of the Frazer, on the Gold and Selkirk ranges, and east of the Columbia valley nearly up to the continental divide.’ In Vancouver's Island it forms with the Douglas fir and red cedar a large though not economically important part of the forest. In Washington and Oregon it is also one of the principal elements of the forest, of which, in the Cascade Forest Reserve, it forms about nine per cent of the timber,” and extends up to 5000 feet, crossing the watershed of the coast range in lat. 45°.
In the drier parts of southern Oregon it becomes rare, and though it occurs in the redwood forests of northern California as far south as Cape Mendocino, I did not see it on the Siskyou mountains or on Mount Shasta. In the interior it is found in the wetter parts of northern Montana, Idaho, and in southern British Columbia, where, in company with Douglas spruce, Picea Engelmanni, Abies grandis, and Larix occidentalis, it sometimes forms a considerable part of the forest, and reaches up to 6000 feet in the Coeur d’Alène mountains, though I did not see it in the valley of the Blackfoot river, near Missoula, where the climate is drier.
It attains its finest development on the coasts of Washington and Oregon, where Sargent says that it attains 200 feet in height, with a stem 20 to 30 feet in girth. Plummer, in his Report on the Mount Rainier Forest Reserve,’ says (p. 101) that it attains an extreme diameter of 6 feet, with a height of 250 feet, of which half to two-thirds is crown. The largest that I actually measured, however, on my visit to Mount Rainier in August 1904, were under 200 feet, with a girth of 12 to 14 feet, and these were growing mixed with Tsuga Pattoniana at an elevation of 4000 to 5000 feet.
In the Cascade Reserve Forest of northern Oregon, near Bridal Veil, at about 3500 feet elevation, I measured and Mr. Kiser photographed a tree 175 feet high and 16 feet 6 inches in girth, with a clean bole of about 60 feet, but I am unable to reproduce this, as the negative has not arrived.
The growth of seedlings in all the forests that I saw was exceptionally good. Mr. H.D. Langille says,* p. 36 :—
"Certain cone-bearers are better adapted for restocking than others, though the reasons are not apparent. For example, young lovely firs (A. amabilis) are abundant everywhere within the zone of that species, whilst noble fir (A. nobilis), having a cone and seed of very similar size and nature, seldom germinates, and a seedling of that species is rarely seen.
1 Mrs. Nicholl, who explored the Rocky Mountains in 1904 and 1905, tells me that it is a large tree at Glacier, on the Canadian Pacific Railway, and grows up to about 5000 feet.
2 Forest Conditions of Cascade Reserve, p. 25, Washington, 1903.
3 Twenty-first Annual Report of the U.S. Geological Survey, part v. Washington, 1900.
4 Forest Conditions in Cascade Reserve, U.S. Geological Survey, Washington, 1903.
