In the Sierra 



slender ; some specimens seventy-five feet 

 high do not exceed five inches in diameter 

 at the ground, but the ordinary form, as far 

 as I have seen, is well proportioned. The 

 average diameter when full grown at this 

 elevation is about twelve or fourteen inches, 

 height forty or fifty feet, the straggling 

 branches bent up at the end, the bark thin 

 and bedraggled with amber-colored resin. 

 The pistillate flowers form little crimson 

 rosettes a fourth of an inch in diameter 

 on the ends of the branchlets, mostly hid- 

 den in the leaf-tassels ; the staminate are 

 about three eighths of an inch in dia- 

 meter, sulphur-yellow, in showy clusters, 

 giving a remarkably rich effect, a brave, 

 hardy mountaineer pine, growing cheer- 

 ily on rough beds of avalanche boulders 

 and joints of rock pavements, as well as 

 in fertile hollows, standing up to the 

 waist in snow every winter for centuries, 

 facing a thousand storms and blooming 

 every year in colors as bright as those 



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