THE FORESTS 169 



In Oregon and Washington it grows in dense 

 forests, growing tall and mast-like to a height of 300 

 feet, and is greatly prized as a lumber tree. But in 

 the Sierra it is scattered among other trees, or 

 forms small groves, seldom ascending higher than 

 5500 feet, and never making what would be called a 

 forest. It is not particular in its choice of soil 

 wet or dry, smooth or rocky, it makes out to live 

 well on them all. Two of the largest specimens I 

 have measured are in Yosemite Valley, one of which 

 is more than eight feet in diameter, and is growing 

 upon the terminal moraine of the residual glacier 

 that occupied the South Fork Canon ; the other is 

 nearly as large, growing upon angular blocks of 

 granite that have been shaken from the precipitous 

 front of the Liberty Cap near the Nevada Fall. No 

 other tree seems so capable of adapting itself to 

 earthquake taluses, and many of these rough boul 

 der-slopes are occupied by it almost exclusively, es 

 pecially in yosemite gorges moistened by the spray 

 of waterfalls. 



INCENSE CEDAR 

 (Libocedrus decurrens) 



THE Incense Cedar is another of the giants quite 

 generally distributed throughout this portion of the 

 forest, without exclusively occupying any consider 

 able area, or even making extensive groves. It as 

 cends to about 5000 feet on the warmer hillsides, and 

 reaches the climate most congenial to it at about 

 from 3000 to 4000 feet, growing vigorously at this ele 

 vation on all kinds of soil, and in particular it is cap- 



