ned during early summer with the crimson sarcodes, the wild rose,
and innumerable violets and gilias. Not even in the shadiest nooks will
you find any rank, untidy weeds or unwholesome darkness. In the north
sides of ridges the boles are more slender, and the ground is mostly
occupied by an underbrush of hazel, ceanothus, and flowering dogwood,
but not so densely as to prevent the traveler from sauntering where he
will; while the crowning branches are never impenetrable to the rays of
the sun, and never so interblended as to lose their individuality.

The Yellow Or Silver Pine

The Silver Pine (Pinus ponderosa), or Yellow Pine, as it is commonly
called, ranks second among the pines of the Sierra as a lumber tree, and
almost rivals the sugar pine in stature and nobleness of port. Because
of its superior powers of enduring variations of climate and soil, it
has a more extensive range than any other conifer growing on the Sierra.
On the western slope it is first met at an elevation of about 2000 feet,
and extends nearly to the upper limit of the timber-line. Thence,
crossing the range by the lowest passes, it descends to the eastern
base, and pushes out for a considerable distance into the hot, volcanic
plains, growing bravely upon well-watered moraines, gravelly lake
basins, climbing old volcanoes and dropping ripe cones among ashes and
cinders.

The average size of full-grown trees on the western slope where it is
associated with the sugar pine, is a little less than 200 feet in height
and from five to six feet in diameter, though specimens considerably
larger may easily be found. Where there is plenty of free sunshine and
other conditions are favorable, it presents a striking contrast in form
to the sugar pine, being a symmetrical spire, formed of a straight round
trunk, clad with innumerable branches that are divided over and over
again. Unlike the Yosemite form about one-half of the trunk is commonly
branchless, but where it grows at all close three-fourths or more is
naked, presenting then a more slender and elegant shaft than any other
tree in the woods. The bark is mostly arranged in massive plates, some
of them measuring four or five feet in length by eighteen inches in
width, with a thickness of three or four inches, forming a quite
marked and distinguishing feature. The needles are of a fine, warm,
yellow-green color, six to eight inches long, firm and elastic, and
crowded in handsome, radiant tassels on t