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| WESTERN
LARCH (Tamarack)- CLICK ON PICTURES FOR LARGER VIEW OF IMAGE |
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Size
at 150 years: 100-160 feet tall, 1 1/2 to 3 feet in diameter Life
Span: 500+ years Needles:
Crowded deciduous in a cluster of 14-30, 1/2" long on spur twigs.
Turn brilliant gold in the fall, then drop to the ground. Cones:
1 to 1 1/2" long with bract protruding from each cone scale. Bark:
Reddish-brown. Flat plates on mature trees. Native
Americans, it is said, seldom used western larch wood; however, they
mixed the dried pitch with grease and used it as a cosmetic. Dried
powdered pitch was also an ingredient of a red paint applied to wood
or buckskin. |
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| WESTERN
RED CEDAR- CLICK ON PICTURES FOR LARGER VIEW OF IMAGE |
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Size
at 250 years: 100-160 feet tall, 2-8 feet in diameter Life
Span: 1,000+ years Leaves:
Small, overlapping, scale-like leaves that form sprays, in opposite
patern. shiny-dark green in color. 1/16 to 1/8" long. Cones:
3/4" long. Brown. Bark:
Cinnamon-red on young stems, gray on old trunks. Fibrous and
shredding. The western
red cedar has been called "the cornerstone of Northwest Coast
aboriginal culture," and has great spiritual significance.
Coastal people used all parts of the tree. They used the wood for
dugout canoes, house planks, bentwood boxes, clothing, and many tools
such as arrow shafts, masks, and paddles. The inner bark made rope,
clothing, and baskets. The long arching branches were twisted into
rope and baskets. It was also used for many medicines. |
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| WESTERN
WHITE PINE- CLICK ON PICTURES FOR LARGER VIEW OF IMAGE |
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Size
at 150 years: 120-180 feet tall, 2.5 to 3.5 feet in diameter Life
Span: 350 years Needles:
2-4" long, in bundles of 5 Cones:
6-12" long, curved when dry The Thompson
people made a medicine from the boughs of western white pine. |
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| CLICK ON PICTURES FOR LARGER VIEW OF IMAGE |
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Size
at 250 years: 30-60 feet tall, 1-2 feet in diameter Life
Span: 450 years Needles:
1 1/2 to 2 3/4 inches long, in bundles of 5. Clustered toward the ends
of the branches. Cones:
About 2 1/2" long, eggshaped, purplish-brown Bark:
Young trees are light brownish gray to cream white, becoming dark
brown at maturity The seeds of
the whitebark pine are a favorite food of the grizzly bear. A bird
called the Clarks Nutcracker also eats the seeds & is responsible
for "planting" many of the seeds, since the cone will not
open naturally until it decays. The Thompson people ate the seeds of the whitebark pine (pinenuts) both raw and roasted. They collected the cones in the fall and dried them to open the scales. They extracted the seeds and ate them fresh or sometimes preserved them for winter by cooking and crushing them and then mixing them with dried berries. |
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| QUAKING
ASPEN- CLICK ON PICTURES FOR LARGER VIEW OF IMAGE |
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Size
at 100 years: 50-60 feet tall, 1-1 1/2 feet in diameter Life
Span: 120 years Leaves:
1 1/2-3" in diameter, broadly egg-shaped, edge finely sawtoothed.
Upper surface shiny green, dull green beneath turns brilliant gold in
fall. Fruit:
About 1/4" long, narrowly conical, curved Bark:
Smooth, whitish and thin to cream-colored becoming dark brown or gray
with age. Indian legend
tells us when the Great Bear smelled the hunter's fire in fall, the
ensuring fight splattered yellow cooking grease and red blood on the
leaves of the aspen forest. The quaking
aspen and its trembling leaves are still a source of wonder. The key
to their fall hues lies not in myth, but in the natural environment. The color
changes start first in the sub-alpine zone (9,000-11,000 feet
elevation) in early September. Progressively, changes reach the
mountain zone (8,000-95,000 feet) by mid-month. Weather can dictate a
good or poor year for color, and the fall display can last from days
to weeks. Aspen wood is
soft and brittle and not very durable. The Shuswap people used young
aspen to make tent poles, but these apparently rotted after a couple
of years. Rotten wood had its uses though. The Carrier people lined
babies' cradles with it because it was soft and absorbent. Aspen
branches boiled in water made a cleanser for guns, traps, and
buckskins. Hunters would also wash themselves in this solution to
remove human odour. The Okanagan
people predicted storms when aspen leaves quivered in no perceptible
wind. |
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WESTERN
PAPER BIRCH- CLICK ON PICTURES FOR LARGER VIEW OF IMAGE |
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Size
at 60 years: 50-70 feet tall, 1-2 feet in diameter Life
Span: 80+ years Leaves:
2-3" long, egg-shaped, edges coarsely notched, surface dull, dark
green. Fruit:
Cylindrical, stalked strobile, 1-1 1/2" long. Bark:
Dark brown at first, turning chalky to creamy white. Separates into
thin papery strips. Paper birch
can be an important winter food for many forest animals including deer
and moose. It is also a favourite food of snowshoe hare, porcupine,
and beaver. Many birds will nest in paper birch, including
woodpeckers, sapsuckers, and vireos. Many Native
Americans used birch bark as material for baskets, cradles, and
canoes. They also used it for wrapping and storing food and for
roofing pit houses. They used the wood for many small items, including
bows and spoons, baskets, cradles, canoes, wrapping and storing food,
roofing pit houses, snow goggles, moose calls, toboggans; wood:
dishes. They drank the
sap as a medicine for colds. Birch sap can be used to make syrup, but it requires 80 to 100 litres of sap to make one litre of syrup! Undiluted, birch sap can be used to make vinegar or birch beer.
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Maintained By- Created October 23, 2002 Website Hosted by |
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