94 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



storms, doggedly submitting to the 

 roughly modeling gales. Some grow 

 close to the bluffs for protection and are 

 in consequence often washed with their 

 helpless protectors, far down a crevasses, 

 where they may be seen clinging 

 desperately to any possible foothold. 

 Every tree has been shaped by the 

 influence of the ocean winds into a 

 beautiful individuality of form. No 

 two are alike, each developing a dis- 

 tinctive manner of resisting adverse 

 conditions. Occasionally a branch that 

 has made a bold, straight thrust into 

 the wind has abruotiv retreated, bend- 

 ing DUCK upon itseit witn serpentine 

 grace. Or a determined branch has 

 been forced to yield inch by inch, until 

 it re-curves downward, banyan fashion, 

 and its needles become burried in the 

 sand. 



This San Diego island of Torrey 

 pines, being the more accessible and 

 by far the largest, is the goal of many 

 a distinguished botanist, scientist, den- 

 drologist as well as laymen interested 

 only in its very remarkable beauty and 

 wild charm of setting. This rare tree 

 was discovered by Dr. C. C. Parry 

 when on the Mexican Boundary Survey 

 of 1850 and by Prof. John Le Conte. 

 It was named in honor of Dr. John 

 Torrey a distinguished scientist and 

 botanist, by his friend Dr. Parry. 

 Reports of an earlier discovery is exant 

 but it is unreliable and the pine was not 

 classified. 



Dr. Jepson, author of the "Silva of 

 California" gives a most interesting 

 account of the formation of these 

 arborial islands. He says "The arborial 

 islands along the coast are taken to be 

 remnants of a great Pleistocene forest. 

 At the end of the Pliocene period there 

 was inaugurated a tremendous series of 

 earth movement on the California 

 coast. Geologists are by no means 

 agreed as to the period and duration 

 of these oscillations but in the Tertiary 

 and Quarternary there was at intervals, 

 land connection between the present 

 mainland and the Santa Barbara Is- 

 lands. A moister climate in the Pliocene 

 or Pleistocene periods would permit the 

 existence of a great forest along the 

 California coast and its extension down- 



ward over a large area which now rests 

 beneath the Pacific ocean, save for the 

 immersed peaks of the Santa Barbara 

 Islands. Subsidence of the mountains 



A TORREY PINE. 



Drawn by E. Roorbach^ 



