108 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



bring to mind Dr. Johnson's remarks on the 

 trees of Scotland. His guide, anxious for the 

 honor of Mull, was still talking of its woods and 

 pointing them out. " Sir," said Johnson, " I 

 saw at Tobermory what they called a wood, which 

 I unluckily took for heath. If you show me 

 what I shall take for furze, it will be something." 



The mountain pine ( Pinus monticola) is far 

 the largest of the Sierra tree mountaineers. 

 Climbing nearly as high as the dwarf albicaulis, 

 it is still a giant in size, bold and strong, stand- 

 ing erect on the storm-beaten peaks and ridges, 

 tossing its cone-laden branches in the rough 

 winds, living a thousand years, and reaching its 

 greatest size — ninety to a hundred feet in height, 

 six to eight in diameter — just where other trees, 

 its companions, are dwarfed. But it is not able 

 to endure burial in snow so long as the albicaulis 

 and flexilis. Therefore, on the upper limit of 

 its range it is found on slopes which, from their 

 steepness or exposure, are least snowy. Its soft 

 graceful beauty in youth, and its leaves, cones, 

 and outsweeping feathery branches constantly 

 remind you of the sugar pine, to which it is 

 closely allied. An admirable tree, growing no- 

 bler in form and size the colder and balder the 

 mountains about it. 



The giants of the main forest in the favored 

 middle region are the sequoia, sugar pine, yellow 

 pine, libocedrus, Douglas spruce, and the two 



