hrysolepis), a sturdy mountaineer of a tree, growing mostly on the
earthquake taluses and benches of the sunny north wall of the Valley.
In tough, unwedgeable, knotty strength, it is the oak of oaks, a
magnificent tree.

The largest and most picturesque specimen in the Valley is near the foot
of the Tenaya Fall, a romantic spot seldom seen on account of the rough
trouble of getting to it. It is planted on three huge boulders and yet
manages to draw sufficient moisture and food from this craggy soil to
maintain itself in good health. It is twenty feet in circumference,
measured above a large branch between three and four feet in diameter
that has been broken off. The main knotty trunk seems to be made up of
craggy granite boulders like those on which it stands, being about the
same color as the mossy, lichened boulders and about as rough. Two
moss-lined caves near the ground open back into the trunk, one on the
north side, the other on the west, forming picturesque, romantic seats.
The largest of the main branches is eighteen feet and nine inches in
circumference, and some of the long pendulous branchlets droop over the
stream at the foot of the fall where it is gray with spray. The leaves
are glossy yellow-green, ever in motion from the wind from the fall. It
is a fine place to dream in, with falls, cascades, cool rocks lined with
hypnum three inches thick; shaded with maple, dogwood, alder, willow;
grand clumps of lady-ferns where no hand may touch them; light filtering
through translucent leaves; oaks fifty feet high; lilies eight feet high
in a filled lake basin near by, and the finest libocedrus groves and
tallest ferns and goldenrods.

In the main river canyon below the Vernal Fall and on the shady south
side of the Valley there are a few groves of the silver fir (Abies
concolor), and superb forests of the magnificent species round the rim
of the Valley.

On the tops of the domes is found the sturdy, storm-enduring red cedar
(Juniperus occidentalis). It never makes anything like a forest here,
but stands out separate and independent in the wind, clinging by slight
joints to the rock, with scarce a handful of soil in sight of it,
seeming to depend chiefly on snow and air for nourishment, and yet it
has maintained tough health on this diet for two thousand years or more.
The largest hereabouts are from five to six feet in diameter and fifty
feet in height.

The principal river-side trees are poplar, alder, willow