derable elevation and on rocky sterile ground, while the
typical form of the yellow pine prevails throughout the lower
regions and on tracts with a more generous soil.

The yellow pine has a wider range than any other of the Tahoe
conifers, though on the high, rocky areas, south and west of
Rubicon Springs it is lacking. It crosses from the western
slopes to the eastern sides of the Sierras and down into the
Tahoe basin over the heads of Miller and McKinney Creeks,
in both places as a thin line, or rather as scattering trees
mixed with Shasta fir and white pine.

It grows from sixty to two hundred and twenty-five feet high with
trunk two to nine feet in diameter. The limbs in mature trees are
horizontal or even drooping. The bark of typical trees is tawny
yellow or yellow-brown, divided by fissures into large smoothish
or scaly-surfaced plates which are often one to four feet long and
one-half to one and a quarter feet wide. The needles are in threes,
five to ten inches long; the cones reddish brown.

It must be noted, too, that "the bark is exceedingly variable,
black-barked or brown-barked trees, roughly or narrowly
fissured, are very common and in their extreme forms
very different in trunk appearance from the typical or
most-abundant 'turtle-back' form with broad, yellow or light
brown plates."--_Jepson_.

_Lodge Pole Pine_. The range of this tree is almost identical
with that of the Shasta fir, though here and there it is found at as
low an altitude as 4500 feet. It loves the margins of creeks, glades
and lakes situated at altitudes of 6000 feet and upward, where it
usually forms a fringe of nearly pure growth in the wet and swampy
portions of the ground. In the Tahoe region it is invariably called a
tamarack or tamarack pine. It is a symmetrical tree commonly reaching
as high as fifty to eighty feet, but occasionally one hundred and
twenty-five feet. When stunted, however, it is only a few feet. The
bark is remarkably thin, rarely more than one quarter inch thick,
light gray in color, very smooth but flaking into small thin scales.
There are only two needles to a bunch, in a sheath, one and a half to
two and three quarters inches long. The cones are chestnut brown, one
to one and three quarters inches long.

It is when sleeping under the lodge pole pines that you begin to
appreciate their perfect charm and beauty. You unroll your blankets
at the fo