34 POESTT LOBOS RESERVE 



and flowers on the forest floor. Pictorially, this is the outstanding type, 

 with its foliage masses contrasting with the ground cover and more distant 

 views, and composing an endless variety of vistas. The pine tree forms are 

 of the most robust and healthy appearance in these areas. The grass and 

 flowers and clumps of rhus, or "poison oak," make these woods always 

 colorful with their seasonal changes. 



A second type is apparently more characteristic of Monterey pme in 

 its most favorable habitat, although (because crowded) the trees on the 

 average have less vigor and health. This is the character of close continuous 

 stands of tall, bare-stemmed trees, which are progressively increasing their 

 spacing through natural crowding. Underbrush is almost entirely limited to 

 occasional live oaks, and in a few places thickets of young pine where there 

 have been recent openings. Pictorially, less interesting than more open and 

 irregular stands, these areas, nevertheless, have their esthetic charm, par- 

 ticularly where the trees are fairly large and widespaced, and not too 

 cluttered with spindling, suppressed trees, dying or dead or fallen, and 

 lying criss-cross on the forest floor. The gray shafts of the trees topped by 

 a high crown of foliage, infinite in their variations of size and curve and 

 spacing are in many places saved from the danger of monotony of color 

 by an occasional poison rhus vine hung in lacy reds and greens high up in 

 a gray pine trunk. j n n 



Young trees, suppressed trees, old flat-headed veterans, dead and tallen 

 trees, large and small, in normal quantities, all help here to complete the 

 presentment of an unbroken life cycle which is in turn part of the longer 

 progression of change and evolution that leads up to what one is looking 

 at, out of the dawn of all trees, and which becomes part of the picture that 

 includes the mound formations, extending through the trees, and the old 

 strand terraces skirting their margins, often opening views out of the 

 higher woods over the open meadows beneath. This type of scenery is not 

 peculiar to Point Lobos, and, in fact, it is seen at its best in forests ot 

 other trees larger and more graceful than the Monterey pme. The principal 

 inherent value of the pine forest at Point Lobos is that it gives background 

 to the meadow margins and that it increases the variety of conditions typ- 

 ical of the coastal shelf; and the condition which will make it of added 

 worth will be unbroken freedom from human interference. 



Now we may consider the third type of pine forest effect, which is that 

 found on steep tree-clad slopes facing north onto Carmel Bay. Here one 

 obtains striking views, out through the tree trunks, over the bay. The 

 value of this effect varies with the density of the forest. If the trees are 

 too thick, the views are obscured, but not so completely that one is not still 

 conscious that the view is there, and consequently one resents the close 

 obscuring trees. Because the trees on these slopes grow tall and leggy, and 

 if they are thin and scattered, they present the appearance of a skeleton 

 forest' like that left by some of the more careful lumbering operations. The 

 strongest esthetic effects in these areas depend upon strong. contrasts be- 

 tween foreground pattern of trees and distant views, and therefore are 

 best seen on clear, sunnv days. In the late spring there is considerable 

 color on the floor from Ericameria and Castilleia, and in more open areas 

 close to the shore will also be found beds of Erigeron, giving pretty strong 

 doses of the three primary colors against a background of greens. 



As to the locations : the two outstanding areas of the open forest type 

 are in the long tongue of woods separating the north shore meadows from 

 those of the south shore, and in the smaller, low area just north of the 



