ADAPTATION OF CONIFERS 117 



more marked with age, so that many species are welcomed in 

 youth, tolerated at mid-age, and destroyed when old. In fact, 

 in southern California conifers of large size are not easy to 

 find, yet many were planted long years ago. Their retirement 

 from public favor may be due, in part, to their misuse in land- 

 scape planting. It is not uncommon to see conifers native to 

 snow-capped mountains on the lower levels, and above, other 

 and broad-leaved evergreens from the tropics — evergreens so 

 tender that their foliage is injured by light frosts. It is rarely 

 indeed that conifers may be planted harmoniously below the 

 line of ordinary vision. Conifers are primarily for the heights 

 and should overtop all other trees. They should not be too 

 closely associated with dwellings, unless on tracts of some 

 altitude or as backgrounds above to relieve otherwise bare 

 landscapes and provide or suggest shelter. 



Parks and large gardens may carry conifers in considerable 

 numbers, but the small garden is better with none, or the 

 planting confined to dwarf species or one or two isolated speci- 

 mens of unusual attractiveness. Considerable space is needed 

 for natural development without pruning, and seldom does a 

 conifer attract favorable notice or comment when the lower 

 branches have been removed. For this reason, conifers are 

 unfitted to roadside alignment unless a parking of twenty or 

 more feet has been reserved. The greatest misuse to which they 

 are subjected in California, and the most common, is to mix 

 species from habitats of almost perpetual snow with palms 

 from the tropics, several of each on an ordinary city lot. 

 Aside from contrasts in form, the palms are in shades of lightest 

 green, while the conifers are of the darkest. 



California possesses numerous native species of conifers. 

 Including Taxaceae, they number forty-two, divided in popular 

 groups as follows: Pine family, twenty-eight; redwood family. 



