184 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA 



flecks of shade, seeming to have been pinned on 

 here and there for the sake of beauty only. The 

 young trees have slender simple branches down 

 to the ground, put on with strict regularity, sharply 

 aspiring at the top, horizontal about half-way down, 

 and drooping in handsome curves at the base. By 

 the time the sapling is five or six hundred years old 

 this spiry, feathery, juvenile habit merges into the 

 firm, rounded dome form of middle age, which in 

 turn takes on the eccentric picturesqueness of old 

 age. No other tree in the Sierra forest has foliage 

 so densely massed or presents outlines so firmly 

 drawn and so steadily subordinate to a special type. 

 A knotty ungovernable-looking branch five to eight 

 feet thick may be seen pushing out abruptly from 

 the smooth trunk, as if sure to throw the regular 

 curve into confusion, but as soon as the general 

 outline is reached it stops short and dissolves in 

 spreading bosses of law-abiding sprays, just as if 

 every tree were growing beneath some huge, invisi 

 ble bell-glass, against whose sides every branch was 

 being pressed and molded, yet somehow indulging 

 in so many small departures from the regular form 

 that there is still an appearance of freedom. 



The foliage of the saplings is dark bluish-green 

 in color, while the older trees ripen to a warm 

 brownish-yellow tint like Libocedrus. The bark is 

 rich cinnamon-brown, purplish in young trees and 

 in shady portions of the old, while the ground is 

 covered with brown leaves and burs forming color- 

 masses of extraordinary richness, not to mention the 

 flowers and underbrush that rejoice about them in 

 their seasons. Walk the Sequoia woods at any time 



