WASHINGTON TO SAN FRANCISCO 161 



las fir, and the cedar (Libocedruo decurrens), both common 

 in our gardens ; then still higher there were silver firs and the 

 fine Picea nobilis, as well as a few of the Big Trees {Sequoia 

 gigantea), the road being cut right through the middle of one 

 of these (at about five thousand eight hundred feet). Higher 

 up still we saw the Tamarask pine (Pinus contorta) and the 

 grand sugar-pines (Pinus lambertiana) the resin of which is 

 quite sugary, with very little of the turpentine taste ; and 

 among these, especially on the valley slopes, is an undergrowth 

 of the beautiful white azalea and the handsome dogwood 

 (Cornus Nuttallii), with very large white bracts. Then on 

 the highest spur (seven thousand feet), where there were still 

 patches of snow, we saw many of the strange snow plants 

 (Sarcodes sanguinea), a thick fleshy root-parasite with a 

 dense spike of flowers of a blood-red colour. It belongs to 

 the heath family, and is allied to our Monotropa hypopitys. 

 The Sarcodes is figured in one of Miss North's pictures at 

 Kew. From the summit we descended towards the valley, 

 and then down a steep zigzag road, with the beautiful Bridal 

 Veil fall opposite, and the grand precipice of El Capitan be- 

 fore us, then into the valley itself with its rushing river, to 

 the hotel in the dusk. 



As both hotel and excursions were here very costly, we 

 only stayed two clear days, and went one " excursion " to the 

 Nevada Fall, the grandest, if not the most beautiful, in the 

 valley. My brother and niece rode up, but I walked to enjoy 

 the scenery, and especially the flowers and ferns and the fine 

 glaciated rocks of the higher valley. The rest of my time I 

 spent roaming about the valley itself and some of its lower 

 precipices, looking after its flowers, and pondering over its 

 strange, wild, majestic beauty and the mode of its formation. 

 On the latter point I have given my views in an article on 

 " Inaccessible Valleys," reprinted in my " Studies." The 

 hotel dining-room looks out upon the Yosemite Falls, which, 

 seen one behind the other have the appearance of a single 

 broken cascade of more than two thousand five hundred feet. 

 I walked up about a thousand feet to get a nearer view of the 

 upper fall, which, in its ever-changing vapour-streams and 



