The Hemlock* 



10,000 feet the treetop rests upon the ground, a flattened mass 

 of graceful limbs, the trunk practically eliminated by natural 

 selection, 



John Muir, describing the forests of the Yosemite Park, tells 

 how the young trees of the lower levels receive the light burden 

 of the first snow in the early autumn, and gradually bending under 

 the load left by succeeding storms, at length form graceful arches, 

 and are buried from sight for five or six months. He has ridden 

 for miles over a smooth snow bank that covered in this fashion 

 trees 40 feet high. They return to their normal position, un- 

 harmed, when the snow goes off. 



The blue-green foliage, the whorled leaf arrangement, the 

 triangular leaf itself, pencilled with white on all sides, and the 

 large cones all set this hemlock in a class by itself. The spray, 

 exceedingly beautiful, even for a hemlock, bears flowers that are 

 unusual in their rich colouring. The pistillate blossoms are 

 royal purple; the staminate, blue as forget-me-nots "of so pure 

 a tone that the best azure of the high sky seems to be condensed 

 in them." Muir. 



Seeds of this alpine hemlock planted in England and in our 

 Eastern States grow slowly, and show none of the grace and vigour 

 of the wild sapling trees. It is the old story of the hardy moun- 

 taineer, languishing in luxury, dying of homesickness for the life 

 of abstinence and struggle to which its race is born. 



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