FLORA OF THE MOUNTAIN. 223 



forest. Almost perfect darkness seems at once to reign, 

 and the journey must be groped through as in a region of 

 absolute night. In mixed forests of these two trees the 

 effect is always charming in the extreme, as they suggest 

 different orders of associations and reveal different phases of 

 the elements of life and beauty. 



Of the Cone-Bearers, or Pine Family, there are not many 

 species on the mountain. A few pitch pines (Finns rigidia) 

 and yellow pines (Pinus mitis) on the eastern declivities and 

 summits, also an occasional spot on the western slopes, to- 

 gether with the white pine and hemlock, which are very 

 abundant on the whole range, constitute the representatives 

 of the evergreen, or terebinthinate order of plants. 



Genus ABIES. On the Alleghany proper there is but 

 one species of Spruce in great abundance. There are several 

 species of this genus on the parallel Appalachian ridges and 

 intervening elevated valleys of Pennsylvania. Asa Gray 

 cites this State as the locality of several species of Abies, 

 viz., the Fraseri, Nigra, Canade'nsis; and it is in the well- 

 known botanical range of the "Balsamea" and "Alba." 

 Some rare localities contain several of these beautiful species, 

 with the Hackmatack. One of these localities is a delightful 

 little "garden of the blest" among the "seven mountains" 

 of Centre and Huntingdon counties, called the " Bear Mea- 

 dows." It is a small, elevated synclinal trough, surrounded 

 by high, sharp, white sandstone (Formation 4) mountains 

 on all sides, with one outlet or gorge, through which flows the 

 stream draining the valley. It is evidently the bed or rich 

 bottom of a mountain tarn or lake, the waters of which 

 have escaped by a rupture of the wall surrounding it. A 

 wild, exquisite, and secluded spot, it would seem to be the 

 fantastic Arcadia of some dreaming artist or lover of na- 

 ture, hidden from the world's vulgar gaze, and consecrated 

 to beauty. Fresh glimpses of green carpet-spots of prairie, 

 with osier beds and clumps of stately, solemn evergreens, 

 black, silver, and balsam firs, with pines, cedars, and laurels, 

 open into vistas of tall, deciduous trees, artistic and surprising 



