90 WEST-AMERICAN 



level, their spires of emerald pierce the azure sky 

 with every form of culminating cone and minaret, all 

 decked, especially around the apex, with garlands of 

 lovely pendent fruit in purple or gold, disposed so 

 attractively as to be the despair of connoisseurs in art. 



The Upright- Coned Trees The Firs 

 Are the symmetrical, law-abiding exponents of vis- 

 ible evolution, adding spray after spray, stratum 

 above stratum, story above story to a vegetable 

 structure of exceptional regularity; the verdure-clad 

 arms in many series, outstretched and joining hands 

 all around, uplift the emerald tunics with scalloped 

 borders draping the hidden form from lowly pediment 

 to airy finial. Standing sentinel on the narrowed 

 shoulders, are the bird-like cones, prim, erect, often 

 feathered, too, like a tropic songster; they watch the 

 changing hues of their mates and note the approach 

 of autumn, when all their ikie plumage must drop 

 away piecemeal, and the released treasure of winged 

 germs the life product of the sacrificing parent 

 may sail away in spiral flight, to repeat in distant 

 vales, the passing miracle of development, 



The Great Sequoias 



Are the stupendous, startling, yet conclusive proofs of 

 the power of Mother Nature, when in the mood, to 

 clothe all the earth with colossal vegetation at will; 

 being sole living examples of the prodigious size that 



