32 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



for farming in the great San Joaquin Valley be- 

 neath them. It extends southward from the 

 Yosemite National Park to the end of the range, 

 a distance of nearly two hundred miles. No 

 other coniferous forest in the world contains so 

 many species or so many large and beautiful 

 trees, — Sequoia gigantea, king of conifers, " the 

 noblest of a noble race," as Sir Joseph Hooker 

 well says; the sugar pine, king of all the 

 world's pines, living or extinct ; the yellow pine, 

 next in rank, which here reaches most perfect 

 development, forming noble towers of verdure 

 two hundred feet high ; the mountain pine, 

 which braves the coldest blasts far up the moun- 

 tains on grim, rocky slopes; and five others, 

 flourishing each in its place, making eight species 

 of pine in one forest, which is still further en- 

 riched by the great Douglas spruce, libocedrus, 

 two species of silver fir, large trees and exquisitely 

 beautiful, the Paton hemlock, the most graceful 

 of evergreens, the curious tumion, oaks of many 

 species, maples, alders, poplars, and flowering 

 dogwood, all fringed with flowery underbrush, 

 manzanita, ceanothus, wild rose, cherry, chestnut, 

 and rhododendron. Wandering at random 

 through these friendly, approachable woods, one 

 comes here and there to the loveliest lily gardens, 

 some of the lilies ten feet high, and the smooth- 

 est gentian meadows, and Yosemite valleys known 

 only to mountaineers. Once I spent a night by 



