202 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA 



the heated air ascends in a powerful current, in 

 creasing in velocity, and dragging the flames swiftly 

 upward ; then the leaves catch fire, and an immense 

 column of flame, beautifully spired on the edges, 

 and tinted a rose-purple hue, rushes aloft thirty or 

 forty feet above the top of the tree, forming a grand 

 spectacle, especially on a dark night. It lasts, how 

 ever, only a few seconds, vanishing with magical 

 rapidity, to be succeeded by others along the fire- 

 line at irregular intervals for weeks at a time tree 

 after tree flashing and darkening, leaving the trunks 

 and branches hardly scarred. The heat, however, 

 is sufficient to kill the trees, and in a few years the 

 bark shrivels and falls off. Belts miles in extent 

 are thus killed and left standing with the branches 

 on, peeled and rigid, appearing gray in the distance, 

 like misty clouds. Later the branches drop off, 

 leaving a forest of bleached spars. At length the 

 roots decay, and the forlorn trunks are blown down 

 during some storm, and piled one upon another en 

 cumbering the ground until they are consumed by 

 the next fire, and leave it ready for a fresh crop. 



The endurance of the species is shown by its 

 wandering occasionally out over the lava plains 

 with the Yellow Pine, and climbing moraineless 

 mountain-sides with the Dwarf Pine, clinging to 

 any chance support in rifts and crevices of storm- 

 beaten rocks always, however, showing the effects 

 of such hardships in every feature. 



Down in sheltered lake hollows, on beds of rich 

 alluvium, it varies so far from the common form as 

 frequently to be taken for a distinct species. Here 

 it grows in dense sods, like grasses, from forty to 



