THE FOKESTS 173 



hopeful shoot. The leaves are in two horizontal 

 rows, along branchlets that commonly are less than 

 eight years old, forming handsome plumes, pin 

 nated like the fronds of ferns. The cones are gray 

 ish-green when ripe, cylindrical, about from three 

 to four inches long by one and a half to two inches 

 wide, and stand upright on the upper branches. 



Full-grown trees, favorably situated as to soil 

 and exposure, are about 200 feet high, and five or 

 six feet in diameter near the ground, though larger 

 specimens are by no means rare. 



As old age creeps on, the bark becomes rougher 

 and grayer, the branches lose their exact regularity, 

 many are snow-bent or broken off, and the main 

 axis often becomes double or otherwise irregular 

 from accidents to the terminal bud or shoot; but 

 throughout all the vicissitudes of its life on the 

 mountains, come what may, the noble grandeur of 

 the species is patent to every eye. 



MAGNIFICENT SILVER FIR, OR RED FIR 



(Abies magnified) 



THIS is the most charmingly symmetrical of all 

 the giants of the Sierra woods, far surpassing its 

 companion species in this respect, and easily dis 

 tinguished from it by the purplish-red bark, which 

 is also more closely furrowed than that of the white, 

 and by its larger cones, more regularly whorled and 

 fronded branches, and by its leaves, which are 

 shorter, and grow all around the branchlets and 

 point upward. 



