1.
Marysville, Washington
Marysville is a city in Snohomish County, United States, part of the Seattle metropolitan area. The city is located 35 miles north of Seattle, adjacent to Everett on the side of the Snohomish River delta. It is the second-largest city in Snohomish County after Everett, with a population of 60,020 in the 2010 U. S. census, as of 2015, Marysville is the fastest-growing city in Washington state, growing at an annual rate of 2.5 percent. Marysville was established in 1872 as a trading post by James P. Comeford, after the town was platted in 1885, a period of growth brought new buildings and industries to Marysville. In 1891, Marysville was incorporated and welcomed the completed Great Northern Railway, the area has subsisted on lumber and agrarian products, the growth of strawberry fields in Marysville led to the city being nicknamed the Strawberry City in the 1920s. The city experienced its first wave of suburbanization in the 1970s and 1980s, resulting in the development of new housing, between 1980 and 2000, the population of Marysville increased five-fold.
In the early 2000s, annexations of unincorporated areas to the north and east expanded the city to over 20 square miles, Marysville is oriented north–south along Interstate 5, bordering the Tulalip Indian Reservation to the west, and State Route 9 to the east. Mount Pilchuck, whose 5, 300-foot high peak can be seen from points in the city, appears in the citys flag. The treatys signing opened most of Snohomish County to American settlement and commercial activities, the timber industry was the largest active industry in the area during the 1860s and 1870s, with hillsides in modern-day Marysville cleared by loggers for dairy farms. The Comefords trading post accepted business from the reservation and logging camps that were established near the mouth of the Snohomish River, in 1874, Comeford acquired three timber claims from local loggers for $450, totaling 1,280 acres, and cleared the land in preparation for settlement. Comeford and his moved to the present site of Marysville in 1877, building a new store.
Comeford completed construction of a hotel in 1883 to welcome new settlers. Among the first residents to arrive were James Johnson and Thomas Lloyd of Marysville, Comeford sold his store and wharf to settlers Mark Swinnerton and Henry B. Myers in 1884, and moved north to the Kellogg Marsh to farm 540 acres of land he purchased, Marysville was formally platted on February 25,1885, filed by the town physician J. D. Morris and dedicated by the Comefords. More settlers began to arrive after the completion of the towns first sawmill in 1887, Marysville was officially incorporated as a fourth-class city on March 20,1891, with a population of approximately 400 residents and Mark Swinnerton serving as the citys first mayor. The Great Northern Railway completed construction of its tracks through Marysville in 1891, building a drawbridge over Ebey Slough, a newspaper named the Marysville Globe was established by Thomas P. Hopp in 1892 and continues to be published for the city. The first city hall was opened in late 1901, at a cost of $2,000, the building housed the citys fire department.
Electrical and water systems were both inaugurated in 1906, alongside the construction of a high school building
2.
Yosemite Valley
Yosemite Valley is a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in the western Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California. The valley is about 8 miles long and up to a deep, surrounded by high granite summits such as Half Dome and El Capitan. The valley is drained by the Merced River and a multitude of streams and waterfalls including Tenaya, Yosemite, Yosemite Falls is the highest waterfall in North America, and is a big attraction especially in the spring when the water flow is at its peak. The valley is renowned for its beauty, and is widely regarded as the centerpiece of Yosemite National Park. The Valley is the attraction in the park for the majority of visitors. On July 2,2011 there was a record 20,851 visitors to the valley, most visitors enter the valley from roads to the west and pass through the famous Tunnel View entrance. Visitor facilities are located in the center of the valley, there are both hiking trail loops that stay within the valley and trailheads that lead to higher elevations, all of which afford glimpses of the parks many scenic wonders.
Yosemite Valley is located on the slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains,150 miles due east of San Francisco. It stretches for 7.5 miles in a roughly east-west direction, Yosemite Valley represents only one percent of the park area, but this is where most visitors arrive and stay. More than half a dozen creeks tumble from hanging valleys at the top of cliffs that can rise 3000–4000 feet above the valley floor. These streams combine into the Merced River, which flows out from the end of the valley. The flat floor of Yosemite Valley holds both forest and large meadows, which provide breathtaking views of the surrounding crests and waterfalls. The first view of Yosemite Valley many visitors see is the Tunnel View, so many paintings were made from a viewpoint nearby that the National Park Service named that viewpoint Artist Point. The view from the end of the Valley contains the great granite monolith El Capitan on the left. Just past this spot the Valley suddenly widens with the Cathedral Spires, to this point, the Valley has been curving gently to the left, to the north.
Now a grand curve back to the right begins, with Yosemite Falls on the north, followed by the Royal Arches, opposite to the south is Glacier Point,3,200 feet above the Valley floor. At this point the Valley splits into two, one section slanting northeast, with the other curving from south to southeast, between them both, at the eastern end of the valley, is Half Dome, the most famous and most recognizable natural feature in the Sierra Nevada. Above and to the northeast of Half Dome is Clouds Rest, at 9926 feet, snow melting in the Sierra forms creeks and lakes
3.
Sierra Nevada (U.S.)
The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Basin and Range Province. The vast majority of the lies in the state of California. The Sierra runs 400 miles north-to-south, and is approximately 70 miles across east-to-west, the Sierra is home to three national parks, twenty wilderness areas, and two national monuments. These areas include Yosemite and Kings Canyon National Parks, the character of the range is shaped by its geology and ecology. More than one hundred years ago during the Nevadan orogeny. The range started to uplift four M. A. ago, the uplift caused a wide range of elevations and climates in the Sierra Nevada, which are reflected by the presence of five life zones. Uplift continues due to faulting caused by forces, creating spectacular fault block escarpments along the eastern edge of the southern Sierra. The Sierra Nevada has a significant history, the California Gold Rush occurred in the western foothills from 1848 through 1855.
Due to inaccessibility, the range was not fully explored until 1912, the Sierra Nevada lies in Central and Eastern California, with a very small but historically important spur extending into Nevada. West-to-east, the Sierra Nevadas elevation increases gradually from 1,000 feet in the Central Valley to an height of about 10,500 feet at its crest only 50–75 miles to the east. The east slope forms the steep Sierra Escarpment, unlike its surroundings, the range receives a substantial amount of snowfall and precipitation due to orographic lift. The Sierra Nevada stretches from the Susan River and Fredonyer Pass in the north to Tehachapi Pass in the south and it is bounded on the west by Californias Central Valley and on the east by the Basin and Range Province. The geographical boundary between the Sierra and the Cascades is virtually indistinguishable, with the Fredonyer Pass designation being traditional, physiographically, the Sierra is a section of the Cascade-Sierra Mountains province, which in turn is part of the larger Pacific Mountain System physiographic division.
The range is drained on its western slope by the Central Valley watershed, the northern third of the western Sierra is part of the Sacramento River watershed, and the middle third is drained by the San Joaquin River. The eastern slope watershed of the Sierra is much narrower, its rivers flow out into the endorheic Great Basin of eastern California and western Nevada. Although none of the eastern rivers reach the sea, many of the streams from Mono Lake southwards are diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct which provides water to Southern California, the height of the mountains in the Sierra Nevada increases gradually from north to south. Between Fredonyer Pass and Lake Tahoe, the range from 5,000 feet to more than 9,000 feet. The crest near Lake Tahoe is roughly 9,000 feet high, farther south, the highest peak in Yosemite National Park is Mount Lyell
4.
Fir
Firs are a genus of 48–56 species of evergreen coniferous trees in the family Pinaceae. They are found much of North and Central America, Asia. Firs are most closely related to the genus Cedrus, douglas firs are not true firs, being of the genus Pseudotsuga. They are large trees, reaching heights of 10–80 m tall, firs can be distinguished from other members of the pine family by the unique attachment of their needle-like leaves and by their different cones. Firs can be distinguished from members of the pine family by the unique attachment of their needle-like leaves to the twig by a base that resembles a small suction cup. The leaves are flattened, sometimes even looking like they are pressed. The leaves have two lines on the bottom, each of which is formed by wax-covered stomatal bands. In most species, the surface of the leaves is uniformly green and shiny, without stomata or with a few on the tip. Other species have the surface of leaves dull, gray-green or bluish-gray to silvery, coated by wax with variable number of stomatal bands.
An example species with shiny green leaves is A. alba, the tips of leaves are usually more or less notched, but sometimes rounded or dull or sharp and prickly. The leaves of plants are usually sharper. In contrast to spruces, even large fir cones do not hang, Section Abies is found in central and eastern Europe and Asia Minor. Abies alba—silver fir Abies nebrodensis—Sicilian fir Abies borisii-regis—Bulgarian fir Abies cephalonica—Greek fir Abies nordmanniana—Nordmann fir or Caucasian fir Abies nordmanniana subsp, equi-trojani—Kazdağı fir, Turkish fir Abies nordmanniana subsp. Abies grandis—grand fir or giant fir Abies grandis var. grandis—Coast grand fir Abies grandis var. idahoensis—interior grand fir Abies concolor—white fir Abies concolor subsp, concolor—Rocky Mountain white fir or Colorado white fir Abies concolor subsp. Salouenensis—Salween fir Abies pindrow—Pindrow fir Abies ziyuanensis—Ziyuan fir Section Amabilis is found in the Pacific Coast mountains in North America and Japan, Abies amabilis—Pacific silver fir Abies mariesii—Maries fir Section Pseudopicea is found in the Sino-Himalayan mountains at high altitudes.
Abies delavayi—Delavays fir Abies delavayi var. nukiangensis— Abies delavayi var. motuoensis— Abies delavayi subsp, fansipanensis— Abies fabri—Fabers fir Abies fabri subsp. Abies religiosa—sacred fir Abies hickelii—Hickels fir Abies hickelii var. oaxacana—Oaxaca fir Section Nobilis Abies procera—noble fir Abies magnifica—red fir Abies magnifica var, because this genus has no insect or decay resistance qualities after logging, it is generally recommended for construction purposes as indoor use only. This wood left outside cannot be expected to last more than 12 to 18 months and it is commonly referred to by several different names, including North American timber, SPF and whitewood
5.
Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca
It occurs from 600 m altitude in the north of the range, up to 3,000 m, rarely 3,200 m, in the south. Further west towards the Pacific coast, it is replaced by the related coast Douglas-fir, some botanists have grouped Mexican Douglas-fir with P. menziesii var. glauca, but genetic and morphological evidence suggest that Mexican populations should be considered a different variety. Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir is most commonly treated as a variety, but has called a subspecies or more rarely a distinct species. The strong ecological and genetic differentiation with intergradation limited primarily to postglacial contact zones in British Columbia supports infraspecific groupings, some botanists have further split Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir into two varieties, but these are not widely acknowledged and have only limited support from genetic testing. Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir is a tree, typically reaching 35–45 m in height and 1 m in diameter, with exceptional specimens known to 67 m tall. It commonly lives more than 500 years and occasionally more than 1,200 years, the bark on young trees is thin, smooth and covered with resin blisters.
On mature trees, it is thick and corky though much less so than coast Douglas-fir. The shoots are brown to gray-brown, though not as smooth as fir shoots, the buds are a distinctive narrow conic shape, 3–6 mm long, with red-brown bud scales. The male cones are 2–3 cm long, and are restricted to or more abundant on lower branches. Pollen cones develop over 1 year and wind-dispersed pollen is released for weeks in the spring. The mature female seed cones are pendent, 4–7 cm long,2 cm broad when closed and they are produced in spring, purple at first, maturing orange-brown in the autumn 5–7 months later. The seeds are 5–6 mm long and 3–4 mm broad, with a 12–15 mm wing, both coast Douglas-fir and Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir produce abundant crops of seed approximately every 2–11 years. Seed is produced annually except for about 1 year in any 4-to-5-year period, Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir grows more slowly than coast Douglas-fir and is much more cold tolerant. Tolerance of different environmental conditions varies among populations of Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir, even nearby populations can differ in cold hardiness.
Root morphology is variable, but when unimpeded, a taproot forms within several years, platelike root morphologies occur where growth is impeded. The most prominent lateral roots begin in the 1st or 2nd year of growth, most roots in surface soil are long ropelike laterals of secondary and tertiary origin. Fine-root production is episodic in response to changing conditions, the average lifespan of fine roots is usually between several days and several weeks. Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir reaches reproductive maturity at 12–15 years and it has winged seeds that are dispersed primarily by wind and gravity
6.
Gall adelgid
The gall adelgid is an adelgid species that produces galls in spruce trees. They infect the new buds of native trees in the[foothills of the Rocky Mountains in the spring. They attack blue spruce to a lesser degree, the insects complete two generations within the year. They require two different trees for its cycle, the second being the Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir. They may attack Sitka, Engelmann, or white spruce, the many different species of adelgids produce different galls on different spruce species. The Cooley spruce gall adelgid is mainly a species that usually alternates between white spruce and Douglas fir. It is rare in eastern Canada, in Ontario, the galls are found mostly on Colorado spruce. The infection is most noticeable on Cooley spruce in the spring, May to June and this infection may be mistakenly diagnosed to as caused by worms, grubs, or even as a sex organ of the spruce. Spruce pollen, however, is released from a structure that lacks needles. The galls are characterized by this form, with a length of 0.5 cm to 8 cm depending on the growth capacity of the tree.
Most galls take on a pink, red, or even deep purple colour while the needles usually remain green, the segments of the new bud that have this gall form will die after the aphids leave in the summer. Once on Douglas fir, the adelgids consume the needles, in the fall, the immature female adelgid, small and wingless, finds a spruce on which to overwinter. In the spring when the winter thaw occurs, the female matures and these, in fact, are not sacks, but individual tufts of white waxy threads that protect the eggs. The females prefer areas on the spruce where they have greater protection from the elements and these female individuals have an obvious patch of white wax wool as a covering. Their mouthparts consist of thread-like stylets which are used to penetrate into vascular bundles for feeding, once hatched, the young nymphs begin feeding around the base of the needles in a new bud. When infections are incomplete, the side of the bud facing the ground will be infected first, only partially afflicted buds can support new growth after the affected tissue has died.
The chamber at the base of each needle is not connected with any other chamber in the gall and this differentiates this infection from that caused by the woolly adelgid genus Pineus, where the chambers are interconnected. The nymphs are brown when first hatched, becoming black when settled in gall chamber, they are flattened oval in shape
7.
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost province of Canada, with a population of more than four million people located between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. British Columbia is a component of the Pacific Northwest and the Cascadia bioregion, along with the U. S. states of Idaho, Oregon and Alaska. The first British settlement in the area was Fort Victoria, established in 1843, subsequently, on the mainland, the Colony of British Columbia was founded by Richard Clement Moody and the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, in response to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. Port Moody is named after him, in 1866, Vancouver Island became part of the colony of British Columbia, and Victoria became the united colonys capital. In 1871, British Columbia became the province of Canada. Its Latin motto is Splendor sine occasu, the capital of British Columbia remains Victoria, the fifteenth-largest metropolitan region in Canada, named for the Queen who created the original European colonies. The largest city is Vancouver, the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada, the largest in Western Canada, in October 2013, British Columbia had an estimated population of 4,606,371.
British Columbia evolved from British possessions that were established in what is now British Columbia by 1871, First Nations, the original inhabitants of the land, have a history of at least 10,000 years in the area. Today there are few treaties and the question of Aboriginal Title, the Tsilhqotin Nation has established Aboriginal title to a portion of their territory, as a result of the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision. BCs economy is diverse, with service producing industries accounting for the largest portion of the provinces GDP and it is the endpoint of transcontinental railways, and the site of major Pacific ports that enable international trade. Though less than 5% of its vast 944,735 km2 land is arable and its climate encourages outdoor recreation and tourism, though its economic mainstay has long been resource extraction, principally logging and mining. Vancouver, the provinces largest city and metropolitan area, serves as the headquarters of many western-based natural resource companies and it benefits from a strong housing market and a per capita income well above the national average.
The Northern Interior region has a climate with very cold winters. The climate of Vancouver is by far the mildest winter climate of the major Canadian cities, the provinces name was chosen by Queen Victoria, when the Colony of British Columbia, i. e. the Mainland, became a British colony in 1858. The current southern border of British Columbia was established by the 1846 Oregon Treaty, British Columbias land area is 944,735 square kilometres. British Columbias rugged coastline stretches for more than 27,000 kilometres and it is the only province in Canada that borders the Pacific Ocean. British Columbias capital is Victoria, located at the tip of Vancouver Island. Only a narrow strip of the Island, from Campbell River to Victoria, is significantly populated, much of the western part of Vancouver Island and the rest of the coast is covered by thick and sometimes impenetrable temperate rainforest
8.
California Coast Ranges
The Coast Ranges of California span 400 miles from Del Norte or Humboldt County, California south to Santa Barbara County. The other three coastal California mountain ranges are the Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges and the Klamath Mountains, physiographically, they are a section of the larger Pacific Border province, which in turn are part of the larger Pacific Mountain System physiographic division. UNESCO has included the California Coast Ranges Biosphere Reserve in its Man, the northern end of the California Coast Ranges overlap the southern end of the Klamath Mountains for approximately 80 miles on the west. They extend southward for more than 600 miles to where the coastline turns eastward along the Santa Barbara Channel, here the southern end meets the Los Angeles Transverse Ranges, or Sierras de los Angeles. The rocks themselves that comprise the mountains are of a great variety, most of the rocks were formed during the Tertiary and Jurassic periods. All of the range has been folded and faulted during several periods, the California Ranges had a high production of mercury following the discovery of gold in the Sierra Nevada.
In the Cache Creek Basin, Cenozoic cinnabar deposits near Clear Lake are the northernmost of a group of similar deposits associated with volcanism, during 1877, these deposits hit their peak production of mercury, producing approximately 2,776 metric tons. These abandoned mines are still a source of mine waste runoff in Cache Creek, the Northern Coast Ranges are a section of the California Coast Ranges. They run parallel to the Pacific Coast from the North San Francisco Bay Area to coastal Del Norte County, the Klamath Mountains, including the Siskiyou Mountains sub-range, lie to the north and northeast. The Southern Coast Ranges lie to the south, the Northern Coast Ranges run north-south parallel to the coast. Component ranges within the Northern Coast Ranges include the Mendocino Range of western Mendocino County and the Mayacamas and Vaca Mountains and they include the King Range, which meet the sea in the Lost Coast region. The southernmost peak of the Northern Coast Ranges is Mount Tamalpais, the highest point in the Northern Coast Ranges is Mount Linn, at 8,098 ft.
The Northern Coast Ranges consist of two parallel belts of mountains, the Outer Northern Coast Ranges lying along the coast. They are separated by a system of valleys. The northern valley portion is drained by the Eel River and its tributaries, a series of short rivers, including the Mattole and Navarro rivers, drain the western slopes of the ranges. The eastern slopes of the drain into the Sacramento Valley. Clear Lake lies in the southeast portion of the range, U. S. Route 101 runs generally north-south in the valleys between the Outer and Inner Northern Coast Ranges. The seaward face of the coastal Outer Northern Coast Ranges is part of the Northern California coastal forests ecoregion, home to forests of Coast Redwood
9.
Cascade Range
The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, and the notable volcanoes known as the High Cascades, the small part of the range in British Columbia is referred to as the Canadian Cascades or, locally, as the Cascade Mountains. The highest peak in the range is Mount Rainier in Washington at 14,411 feet, the Cascades are part of the Pacific Oceans Ring of Fire, the ring of volcanoes and associated mountains around the Pacific Ocean. All of the eruptions in the contiguous United States over the last 200 years have been from Cascade volcanoes, the two most recent were Lassen Peak from 1914 to 1921 and a major eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. Minor eruptions of Mount St. Helens have occurred since, the Cascade Range is a part of the American Cordillera, a nearly continuous chain of mountain ranges that form the western backbone of North America, Central America, and South America.
The Cascades extend northward from Lassen Peak in northern California to the confluence of the Nicola, the Fraser River separates the Cascades from the Coast Mountains. The highest volcanoes of the Cascades, known as the High Cascades, dominate their surroundings and they often have a visual height of one mile or more. The highest peaks, such as the 14, 411-foot Mount Rainier, Mount Baker in Washington recorded a world-record single-season snowfall in the winter of 1998–99 with 1,140 inches. Prior to that year, Mount Rainier held the record for snow accumulation at Paradise in 1978. It is not uncommon for some places in the Cascades to have over 500 inches of snow accumulation, such as at Lake Helen. Most of the High Cascades are therefore white with snow and ice year-round, annual rainfall is as low as 9 inches on the eastern foothills due to a rain shadow effect. Beyond the eastern foothills is a plateau that was largely created 17 to 14 million years ago by the many flows of the Columbia River Basalt Group.
Together, these sequences of fluid volcanic rock form the 200, 000-square-mile Columbia Plateau in eastern Washington, the Columbia River Gorge is the only major break of the range in the United States. When the Cascades began to rise 7 million years ago in the Pliocene, as the range grew, erosion from the Columbia River was able to keep pace, creating the gorge and major pass seen today. The gorge exposes uplifted and warped layers of basalt from the plateau, in early 1792, British navigator George Vancouver explored Puget Sound and gave English names to the high mountains he saw. Mount Baker was named for Vancouvers third lieutenant, Joseph Baker, although the first European to see it was Manuel Quimper, Mount Rainier was named after Admiral Peter Rainier. Later in 1792, Vancouver had his lieutenant William Robert Broughton explore the lower Columbia River and he named Mount Hood after Lord Samuel Hood, an admiral of the Royal Navy. Mount St. Helens was sighted by Vancouver in May 1792 and it was named for Alleyne FitzHerbert, 1st Baron St Helens, a British diplomat
10.
Washington (state)
It was admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington State or the State of Washington to distinguish it from Washington, Washington is the 18th largest state with an area of 71,362 square miles, and the 13th most populous state with over 7 million people. Washington is the second most populous state on the West Coast and in the Western United States, Mount Rainier, an active stratovolcano, is the states highest elevation at almost 14,411 feet and is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States. Washington is a leading lumber producer and its rugged surface is rich in stands of Douglas fir, ponderosa pine, white pine, spruce and cedar. Manufacturing industries in Washington include aircraft and missiles and other equipment, food processing and metal products, chemicals. Washington has over 1,000 dams, including the Grand Coulee Dam, built for a variety of purposes including irrigation, flood control, the Washington Territory was named after George Washington, the first President of the United States.
The area was part of a region called the Columbia District after the Columbia River. The area was renamed Washington in order to avoid confusion with the District of Columbia, Washington is the only U. S. state named after a president. To distinguish it from the U. S. capital, which is named for George Washington, Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington State, or, in more formal contexts. Washingtonians and other residents of the Pacific Northwest refer to the state simply as Washington, calling the nations capital Washington, D. C. or, Washington is the northwestern-most state of the contiguous United States. Washington is bordered by Oregon to the south, with the Columbia River forming the western part, to the west of Washington lies the Pacific Ocean. The high mountains of the Cascade Range run north-south, bisecting the state, from the Cascade Mountains westward, Western Washington has a mostly marine west coast climate, with mild temperatures and wet winters and springs, and relatively dry summers.
The Cascade Range contains several volcanoes, which reach altitudes significantly higher than the rest of the mountains, from the north to the south, these major volcanoes are Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Adams. Mount Rainier, the tallest mountain in the state, is 50 miles south of the city of Seattle and it is covered with more glacial ice than any other peak in the contiguous 48 states. Western Washington is home of the Olympic Mountains, far west on the Olympic Peninsula and these deep forests, such as the Hoh Rainforest, are among the only temperate rainforests in the continental United States. Eastern Washington – the part of the state east of the Cascades – has a dry climate. It includes large areas of steppe and a few truly arid deserts lying in the rain shadow of the Cascades. Farther east, the climate becomes less arid, with annual rainfall increasing as one goes east to 21.2 inches in Pullman, the Okanogan Highlands and the rugged Kettle River Range and Selkirk Mountains cover much of the northeastern quadrant of the state
11.
Bract
In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis, or cone scale. Bracts are often different from foliage leaves and they may be smaller, larger, or of a different color, shape, or texture. Typically, they look different from the parts of the flower. The state of having bracts is referred to as bracteate or bracteolate, some bracts are brightly colored and serve the function of attracting pollinators, either together with the perianth or instead of it. Examples of this type of bract include Euphorbia pulcherrima and Bougainvillea, in grasses, each floret is enclosed in a pair of papery bracts, called the lemma and palea, while each spikelet has a further pair of bracts at its base called glumes. These bracts form the chaff removed from cereal grain during threshing and winnowing, bats may detect acoustic signals from dish-shaped bracts such as those of Marcgravia evenia. A prophyll is a structure, such as a bracteole.
The term can mean the lower bract on a peduncle. The frequently showy pair of bracts of Euphorbia species in subgenus Lacanthis are the cyathophylls, bracts subtend the cone scales in the seed cones of many conifers, and in some cases, such as Pseudotsuga, they extend beyond the cone scales. A small bract is called a bracteole or bractlet, technically this is any bract that arises on a pedicel instead of subtending it. Bracts that appear in a whorl subtending an inflorescence are called an involucre. An involucre is a common feature beneath the inflorescences of many Apiaceae, Asteraceae and Polygonaceae, each flower in an inflorescence may have its own whorl of bracts, in this case called an involucel. In this case they may be called chaff, paleas, or receptacular bracts and are usually minute scales or bristles, many asteraceous plants have bracts at the base of each inflorescence. The term involucre is used for a highly conspicuous bract or bract pair at the base of an inflorescence, in the family Betulaceae, notably in the genera Carpinus and Corylus, the involucre is a leafy structure that protects the developing nuts.
Beggar-tick has narrow involucral bracts surrounding each inflorescence, each of which has a bract below it. There is a pair of bracts on the main stem. It is a calyx-like extra whorl of floral appendages, each individual segment of the epicalyx is called an episepal because they resemble the sepals. They are present in family Malvaceae, the Hibiscus family, fragaria may or may not have an epicalyx
12.
Leaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant and is the principal lateral appendage of the stem. The leaves and stem together form the shoot, Leaves are collectively referred to as foliage, as in autumn foliage. Although leaves can be seen in different shapes and textures, typically a leaf is a thin, dorsiventrally flattened organ, borne above ground. Most leaves have distinctive upper surface and lower surface that differ in colour, broad, flat leaves with complex venation are known as megaphylls and the species that bear them, the majority, as broad-leaved or megaphyllous plants. In others, such as the clubmosses, with different evolutionary origins, some leaves, such as bulb scales are not above ground, and in many aquatic species the leaves are submerged in water. Succulent plants often have thick juicy leaves, but some leaves are without major photosynthetic function and may be dead at maturity, as in some cataphylls, several kinds of leaf-like structures found in vascular plants are not totally homologous with them.
Examples include flattened plant stems called phylloclades and cladodes, and flattened leaf stems called phyllodes which differ from both in their structure and origin. Many structures of plants, such as the phyllids of mosses and liverworts and even of some foliose lichens. Leaves are the most important organs of most vascular plants and these are further processed by chemical synthesis into more complex organic molecules such as cellulose, the basic structural material in plant cell walls. The plant must therefore bring these three together in the leaf for photosynthesis to take place. Once sugar has been synthesized, it needs to be transported to areas of growth such as the plant shoots and roots. Vascular plants transport sucrose in a tissue called the phloem. The phloem and xylem are parallel to each other but the transport of materials is usually in opposite directions. Within the leaf these vascular systems branch to form veins which supply as much as the leaf as possible and they are arranged on the plant so as to expose their surfaces to light as efficiently as possible without shading each other, but there are many exceptions and complications.
For instance plants adapted to windy conditions may have pendent leaves, such as in many willows, the flat, or laminar, shape maximises thermal contact with the surrounding air, promoting cooling. Functionally, in addition to photosynthesis the leaf is the site of transpiration and guttation. Many gymnosperms have thin needle-like or scale-like leaves that can be advantageous in cold climates with frequent snow and these are interpreted as reduced from megaphyllous leaves of their Devonian ancestors. For xerophytes the major constraint is not light flux or intensity, some window plants such as Fenestraria species and some Haworthia species such as Haworthia tesselata and Haworthia truncata are examples of xerophytes. and Bulbine mesembryanthemoides
