he upturning ends of the
branches. The cones are about three or four inches long, and two and
a half wide, growing in close, sessile clusters among the leaves.

The species attains its noblest form in filled-up lake basins,
especially in those of the older yosemites, and as we have seen, so
prominent a part does it form of their groves that it may well be called
the Yosemite Pine.

The Jeffrey variety attains its finest development in the northern
portion of the Range, in the wide basins of the McCloud and Pitt Rivers,
where it forms magnificent forests scarcely invaded by any other tree.
It differs from the ordinary form in size, being only about half as tall,
in its redder and more closely-furrowed bark grayish-green foliage, less
divided branches, and much larger cones; but intermediate forms come in
which make a clear separation impossible, although some botanists regard
it as a distinct species. It is this variety of ponderosa that climbs
storm-swept ridges alone, and wanders out among the volcanoes of the
Great Basin. Whether exposed to extremes of heat or cold, it is dwarfed
like many other trees, and becomes all knots and angles, wholly unlike
the majestic forms we have been sketching. Old specimens, bearing cones
about as big as pineapples, may sometimes be found clinging to rifted
rocks at an elevation of 7000 or 8000 feet, whose highest branches
scarce reach above one's shoulders.

I have often feasted on the beauty of these noble trees when they were
towering in all their winter grandeur, laden with snow--one mass of
bloom; in summer, too, when the brown, staminate clusters hang thick
among the shimmering needles, and the big purple burrs are ripening in
the mellow light; but it is during cloudless wind-storms that these
colossal pines are most impressively beautiful. Then they bow like
willows, their leaves streaming forward all in one direction, and, when
the sun shines upon them at the required angle, entire groves glow as if
every leaf were burnished silver. The fall of tropic light on the crown
of a palm is a truly glorious spectacle, the fervid sun-flood breaking
upon the glossy leaves in long lance-rays, like mountain water among
boulders at the foot of an enthusiastic cataract. But to me there is
something more impressive in the fall of light upon these noble, silver
pine pillars: it is beaten to the finest dust and shed off in myriads
of minute sparkles that seem to radiate from the very heart of