_Chamoecyparis Lawsoniana_ is a magnificent tree in the coast
ranges, but small in the Sierra. It is found only well to the northward
along the banks of cool streams on the upper Sacramento toward Mount
Shasta. Only a few trees of this species, as far as I have seen, have as
yet gained a place in the Sierra woods. It has evidently been derived
from the coast range by way of the tangle of connecting mountains at the
head of the Sacramento Valley.

In shady dells and on cool stream banks of the northern Sierra we also
find the Yew (_Taxus brevifolia_).

The interesting Nutmeg Tree (_Torreya Californica_) is sparsely
distributed along the western flank of the range at an elevation of
about 4000 feet, mostly in gulches and canons. It is a small, prickly
leaved, glossy evergreen, like a conifer, from twenty to fifty feet
high, and one to two feet in diameter. The fruit resembles a green-gage
plum, and contains one seed, about the size of an acorn, and like a
nutmeg, hence the common name. The wood is fine-grained and of a
beautiful, creamy yellow color like box, sweet-scented when dry, though
the green leaves emit a disagreeable odor.

_Betula occidentalis_, the only birch, is a small, slender tree
restricted to the eastern flank of the range along stream-sides below
the pine-belt, especially in Owen's Valley.

Alder, Maple, and Nuttall's Flowering Dogwood make beautiful bowers over
swift, cool streams at an elevation of from 3000 to 5000 feet, mixed
more or less with willows and cottonwood; and above these in lake basins
the aspen forms fine ornamental groves, and lets its light shine
gloriously in the autumn months.

The Chestnut Oak (_Quercus densiflora_) seems to have come from the
coast range around the head of the Sacramento Valley, like the
_Chamaecyparis_, but as it extends southward along the lower edge
of the main pine-belt it grows smaller until it finally dwarfs to a mere
chaparral bush. In the coast mountains it is a fine, tall, rather
slender tree, about from sixty to seventy-five feet high, growing with
the grand _Sequoia sempervirens_, or Redwood. But unfortunately it
is too good to live, and is now being rapidly destroyed for tan-bark.

Besides the common Douglas Oak and the grand _Quercus Wislizeni_ of
the foot-hills, and several small ones that make dense growths of
chaparral, there are two mountain-oaks that grow with the pines up to an
elevation of about 5000 feet above the sea, and greatly enhan