960 Part III. Chapter 3. 
they have taken, and present a dry, even surface free from rock-heaps, mossy 
bogginess, and the roughness of rank, coarse-leaved, weedy and shrubby vege- 
tation. The soil, is close and fine, and so complete that you cannot see the 
ground and with its vegetation, it may be likened to a garden-meadow, or 
meadow-garden. Glacial meadows abound throughout the alpine and sub- 
alpine regions of the Sierra in still greater numbers than the lakes. Probably 
from 2500 to 30c0 exist between the latitude 36° 30’ and 39° distributed like 
the lakes in concordance with all the other glacial features of the landscapes. 
There are big meadows usually about five to ten miles long. These occupy 
the basins of the ancient ice-seas, where many tributary glaciers came together 
to form the grand trunks. 
The historic development of the flora of these areas has been, as follows. 
With the retreat of the ice, a lake was formed, later to be surrounded by 
tree vegetation. The lake, if large, slowly filled with silt and aquatic plants; 
if small, more rapidiy. A bog resulted by the filling process and bog as- 
sociations appeared and as the ground became drier and more compact, the 
meadow species, last in point of time to arrive, covered the area of the former 
lake basin. The culmination, however, is reached when the meadow plant 
associations are finally driven out by the encroachment of tree vegetation. 
All of the vegetation of these areas, then, is subsequent to a period marked 
by the present of extensive glaciers, which during a period of refrigeration 
covered all of these mountain summits. In these meadows, species of suC 
genera, as Gentiana, Ivesia, Orthocarpus, Solidago, Pentstemon, T' rıfolium, 
Calamagrostis, Bromus, Agrostis, Triticum abound with mosses on the ground, 
Hypnum, Dicranum, Polytrichum. 
Hanging meadows found aslant upon moraine-covered hillsides trending in 
the direction of greatest declivity occur in the alpine and subalpine regions 
in considerable numbers. Such plants, as Veratrum album, Aquilegia, Senecio, 
Allium, Castilleja, Delphinium, Lilium, Lupinus, Mimulus and Pentstemon form 
a rich vegetal growth with brilliant flowers. These hanging meadows are 
likewise subsequent to the glaciers for they occur on glacial deposits, morainic 
material and the like ’). 
The eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains are forest clad in a 
great measure; while the western slopes bear the noblest and most Fe 
markable forest of the world. It is remarkable not only for the number 
of species of evergreen trees occupying a comparatively narrow area, uf 
especially for their. wonderful development in size and height. There is nO 
forest to be compared for grandeur with that which”stretches, essentially un 
broken, though often narrowed and nowhere very wide, from the southern 
part of the Sierra Nevada in latitude 36° to Puget Sound beyond latitude 49°. 
The forest, separated by the valley of California, resumes sway in the Pacific 
coast ranges with altered features. The redwoods of the coast for instance 
ı) Cf. Muir, JoHn: The Mountains of California. 1901: 98—138. 
