CONE-BEARERS. 65 



a few trees, tall and very symmetrical, in Miller's and 

 neighboring canons. 



SYMMETRY OF THE FIRS. 



No more prim, symmetrical, absolutely conventional 

 trees are found in the Conifer family than the Silver Firs 

 of California. Young trees of the same age are generally 

 of the same* size, the circles or whorls of branches are 

 wide at the base and diminish regularly to the conical 

 apex, each whorl of branches composed of several mem- 

 bers usually five each throws off pinnae, right and left, 

 annually, these repeating the process again and again, 

 the whole branch simulates the compound frond of a 

 graceful fern. At about fifty years a great change comes. 

 Cones, like little caskets, appear, erect, in a small circle 

 upon the topmost branches of the previous year. Simul- 

 taneously, the lowest whorl of branches dies and falls 

 away. Life and, death are fjj^s. Each year a new 

 whorl is added at top and withdrawn at base; but death 

 is the speedier angel, and often two or more whorls are 

 removed each year. As the noble trees in a dense Sierra 

 forest arise 200 to 300 fe "t, the great columnar trunks are 

 always shorn of their limbs to the very crown. This 

 crown is seldom invaded; it preserves its domed integrity 

 inviolate through the centuries, always decorated, in the 

 season, with hundreds of royal-purple or burnished-gold 

 caskets, in graduated circles not a branch awry nor a 

 casket missing architectural precision and regal splendor 

 magnificently displayed in the silent depths of the path- 

 less woods. 



