The Incense Cedar 



of the landscape. While young and growing fast in an open 

 situation, no other tree of its size in the park forms so exactly 

 tapered a pyramid. The branches, outspread in flat plumes and 

 beautifully fronded, sweep gracefully downward and outward, 

 except those near the top, which aspire; the lowest droop to the 

 ground, overlapping one another, shedding rain and snow, and 

 making fme tents for storm-bound mountaineers and birds. I n old 

 age it becomes irregular and picturesque, mostly from accidents — 

 running fires, heavy wet snow breaking the branches, lightning 

 shattering the top, compelling it to try to make new summits out 

 of side branches, etc. Still it frequently lives more than a thousand 

 years, invincibly beautiful, and worthy its place beside the Douglas 

 spruce and the great pines." 



95 



