THE FOBESTS 215 



The longevity of this lowly dwarf is far greater 

 than would be guessed. Here, for example, is a 

 specimen, growing at an elevation of 10,700 feet, 

 which seems as though it might be plucked up by 

 the roots, for it is only three and a half inches in 

 diameter, and its topmost tassel is hardly three feet 

 above the ground. Cutting it half through and 

 counting the annual rings with the aid of a lens, 

 we find its age to be no less than 255 years. Here 

 is another telling specimen about the same height, 

 426 years old, whose trunk is only six inches in 

 diameter ; and one of its supple branchlets, hardly 

 an eighth of an inch in diameter inside the bark, is 

 seventy-five years old, and so filled with oily balsam, 

 and so well seasoned by storms, that we may tie it 

 in knots like a whip-cord. 



WHITE PINE 



(Pinus flexilis) 



THIS species is widely distributed throughout the 

 Rocky Mountains, and over all the higher of the 

 many ranges of the Great Basin, between the Wah- 

 satch Mountains and the Sierra, where it is known 

 as White Pine. In the Sierra it is sparsely scattered 

 along the eastern flank, from Bloody Canon south 

 ward nearly to the extremity of the range, opposite 

 the village of Lone Pine, nowhere forming any ap 

 preciable portion of the general forest. From its 

 peculiar position, in loose, straggling parties, it 

 seems to have been derived from the Basin ranges 

 to the eastward, where it is abundant. 



