146 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA 



leaving a considerable portion of the old glacial 

 surface bare, we find luxuriant forests of pine and 

 fir abruptly terminated by scored and polished 

 pavements on which not even a moss is growing, 

 though soil alone is required to fit them for the 

 growth of trees 200 feet in height. 



THE NUT PINE 

 (Pinus Sabiniana) 



THE Nut Pine, the first conifer met in ascending the 

 range from the west, grows only on the torrid foot 

 hills, seeming to delight in the most ardent sun- 

 heat, like a palm; springing up here and there singly, 

 or in scattered groups of five or six, among scrubby 

 White Oaks and thickets of ceanothus and manza- 

 nita; its extreme upper limit being about 4000 feet 

 above the sea, its lower about from 500 to 800 feet. 



This tree is remarkable for its airy, widespread, 

 tropical appearance, which suggests a region of 

 palms, rather than cool, resiny pine woods. No one 

 would take it at first sight to be a conifer of any 

 kind, it is so loose in habit and so widely branched, 

 and its foliage is so thin and gray. Full-grown 

 specimens are from forty to fifty feet in height, and 

 from two to three feet in diameter. The trunk 

 usually divides into three or four main branches, 

 about fifteen and twenty feet from the ground, 

 which, after bearing away from one another, shoot 

 straight up and form separate summits ; while the 

 crooked subordinate branches aspire, and radiate, 

 and droop in ornamental sprays. The slender, 



