springing up here and there singly, or in
scattered groups of five or six, among scrubby White Oaks and thickets
of ceanothus and manzanita; its extreme upper limit being about 4000
feet above the sea, its lower about from 500 to 800 feet.

This tree is remarkable for its airy, widespread, tropical appearance,
which suggests a region of palms, rather than cool, resiny pine woods.
No one would take it at first sight to be a conifer of any kind, it is
so loose in habit and so widely branched, and its foliage is so thin and
gray. Full-grown specimens are from forty to fifty feet in height, and
from two to three feet in diameter. The trunk usually divides into three
or four main branches, about fifteen and twenty feet from the ground,
which, after bearing away from one another, shoot straight up and form
separate summits; while the crooked subordinate branches aspire, and
radiate, and droop in ornamental sprays. The slender, grayish-green
needles are from eight to twelve inches long, loosely tasseled, and
inclined to droop in handsome curves, contrasting with the stiff,
dark-colored trunk and branches in a very striking manner. No other tree
of my acquaintance, so substantial in body, is in its foliage so thin
and so pervious to the light. The sunbeams sift through even the
leafiest trees with scarcely any interruption, and the weary, heated
traveler finds but little protection in their shade.

[Illustration: NUT PINE (PINUS SABINIANA).]

The generous crop of nutritious nuts which the Nut Pine yields makes it
a favorite with Indians, bears, and squirrels. The cones are most
beautiful, measuring from five to eight inches in length, and not much
less in thickness, rich chocolate-brown in color, and protected by
strong, down-curving hooks Which terminate the scales. Nevertheless, the
little Douglas squirrel can open them. Indians gathering the ripe nuts
make a striking picture. The men climb the trees like bears and beat off
the cones with sticks, or recklessly cut off the more fruitful branches
with hatchets, while the squaws gather the big, generous cones, and
roast them until the scales open sufficiently to allow the hard-shelled
seeds to be beaten out. Then, in the cool evenings, men, women, and
children, with their capacity for dirt greatly increased by the soft
resin with which they are all bedraggled, form circles around
camp-fires, on the bank of the nearest stream, and lie in easy
independence cracking nuts and laug