THE FORESTS OF THE YO SEMITE PARK 111 



free of limbs for a hundred feet or more. The 

 top is furnished with long and comparatively 

 slender branches, which sweep gracefully down- 

 ward and outward, feathered with short tasseled 

 branchlets, and divided only at the ends, forming 

 a palmlike crown fifty to seventy-five feet wide, 

 but without the monotonous uniformity of palm 

 crowns or of the spires of most conifers. The 

 old trees are as tellingly varied and picturesque 

 as oaks. No two are alike, and we are tempted 

 to stop and admire every one we come to, whether 

 as it stands silent in the calm balsam-scented sun- 

 shine or waving in accord with enthusiastic 

 storms. The leaves are about three or four 

 inches long, in clusters of five, finely tempered, 

 bright lively green, and radiant. The flowers 

 are but little larger than those of the dwarf pine, 

 and far less showy. The immense cylindrical 

 cones, fifteen to twenty or even twenty-four inches 

 long and three in diameter, hang singly or in 

 clusters, like ornamental tassels, at the ends of 

 the long branches, green, flushed with purple on 

 the sunward side. Like those of almost all the 

 pines they ripen in the autumn of the second 

 season from the flower, and the seeds of all that 

 have escaped the Indians, bears, and squirrels 

 take wing and fly to their places. Then the 

 cones become still more effective as ornaments, 

 for by the spreading of the scales the diameter is 

 nearly doubled, and the color changes to a rich 



