106 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



the park it is sparsely scattered along the eastern 

 flank of the range from Mono Pass southward, 

 above the nut-pine, at an elevation of from eight 

 to ten thousand feet, dwarfing to a tangled bush 

 near the timber-line, but under favorable condi- 

 tions attaining a height of forty or fifty feet, 

 with a diameter of three to five. The long 

 branches show a tendency to sweep out in bold 

 curves, like those of the mountain and sugar 

 pines to which it is closely related. The needles 

 are in clusters of five, closely packed on the 

 ends of the branchlets. The cones are about 

 five inches long, — the smaller ones nearly oval, 

 the larger cylindrical. But the most interesting 

 feature of the tree is its bloom, the vivid red 

 pistillate flowers glowing among the leaves like 

 coals of fire. 



The dwarfed pine or white-barked pine (Pinus 

 albicaulis) is sure to interest every observer on 

 account of its curious low matted habit, and the 

 great height on the snowy mountains at which it 

 bravely grows. It forms the extreme edge of the 

 timber-line on both flanks of the summit moun- 

 tains — if so lowly a tree can be called timber — 

 at an elevation of ten to twelve thousand feet 

 above the level of the sea. Where it is first met 

 on the lower limit of its range it may be thirty 

 or forty feet high, but farther up the rocky 

 wind-swept slopes, where the snow lies deep and 

 heavy for six months of the year, it makes shaggy 



