<?8 WEST-AMERICAN 



eastern slopes, facing Salinas Valley and the great San 

 Joaquin Valley, are flecked with white masses of the 

 Gray-leaf Pine. Groves of Big-cone Pine crown the 

 mountains back of San Luis Obispo, and, near at hand, 

 is the original locality of the discovery of the Prickle- 

 cone Pine, abundant on the coasts, northward. 



But the most wonderful product of the southern coast 

 ranges is the exceedingly local Beautiful Fir, with its 

 trim pinnacle of foliage, and its bristle-clothed cones. He 

 who would view these graceful spires must take his life 

 in his hands and clamber up and over the almost inacces- 

 sible fastnesses of the range of Santa Lucia, near the 

 Monterey line; an achievement that has baffled many a 

 sturdy mountaineer since Douglas found the tree and 

 named it venusta for the goddess of beauty Venus. 



Nearing Monterey Bay, the well-known and widely 

 cultivated Monterey Pine and its traveling and ocean- 

 battling companion, the Monterey Cypress, are met with, 

 and near Santa Cruz, the first trees of the California 

 Nutmeg gleam forth in vernal glory from amidst the first 

 trees of the world-famous monster Coast Redwoods of 

 which want of space forbids further mention. 



Crossing the Golden strait, the North Coast-range con- 

 tinues and augments the forest growth with larger collec- 

 tions of the redwood along the many rivers, with larger 

 Douglas Spruce, Pacific Red Cedar, Tide-land Spruce, 

 California White Fir, Yellow Pine, Incense Cedar, the 

 Prickle-cone and North-coast Scrub Pine (with its dwarf 

 variety, Bolander's Pine, near Mendocino). The inner 

 slopes of the range are clouded with Gray-leaf Pine, 

 while in the Scott Mountains, west of Shasta and near 

 the town of Sisson, appear small groves of Lawson Cy- 

 press stray members of the tribe of trees that long ago 



