MOUNTAIN TREES 



which engineers have never found. A 

 chimney 50 feet high must have a diam- 

 eter at base of at least three feet, but a 

 tree with the same diameter will often 

 run upwards over a hundred and fifty 

 feet, and the tree has leaves and 

 branches to support besides its own 

 trunk. It is said that a rye plant will 

 support a stem that is 500 times its di- 

 ameter. 



The giant pines and other forest trees 

 growing in rich, humid soil are not 

 ashamed to accept, in their effort to get 

 a living from the soil, the assistance of 

 certain small fungous plants known as 

 mycorhizas. These form peculiar felt- 

 like sheaths about the roots and enter 

 into closest relations with the root 

 surfaces contributing to the tree nut- 

 rient materials, especially needed min- 

 eral constituents which could not be 

 otherwise secured by the roots. It is 

 possible that in the case of older roots 

 which have lost most of their root hairs, 

 the fungous filaments considerably in- 



37 



