276 TREES 



of a race of dwarf junipers, known in many and various 

 horticultural forms. 



The Western Juniper 



J. occidentalis. Hook. 



The giant of its race is the Western juniper, one of the 

 patriarchial trees of America, ranking in age with the 

 sequoias. Never a tall tree, it yet attains a trunk diameter 

 of ten feet, and an age that surely exceeds two thousand 

 years. At elevations of seven to ten thousand feet this 

 valiant red cedar is found clinging to the granite domes 

 and bare glacial pavements where soil and moisture seem 

 absolutely non-existent. Sunshine and thin air are 

 abundant, however, and elbow room. Upon these com- 

 modities the tree subsists, crouching, stubbornly clinging, 

 while a single root offers foothold, its gnarled branches 

 picturesque and beautiful in their tufts of gray-green 

 leaves. Avalanches have beheaded the oldest of these 

 giants, but their denuded trunks throw out wisps of 

 new foliage with each returning spring. When they suc- 

 cumb, their trunks last almost as long as the granite 

 boulders among which they are cast by the wind or the 

 ice-burden that tore them loose. 



The stringy bark is woven into cloth and matting by 

 the Indians, and the fine-grained, hard, red wood finds no 

 better use than for the mountaineer's fencing and fuel. 



The Eastern Red Cedar 



J. Virginiana, Linn. 



The Eastern red cedar is a handsome, narrow pyramid 

 in its youth, often becoming broad and irregular, or 



