THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 119 



as brightly colored as those of the Douglas 

 spruce, push out their fragrant brown buds a 

 few weeks later, making another grand show. 



The cones mature in a single season from the 

 flowers. When full grown they are about six 

 to eight inches long, three or four in diameter, 

 blunt, massive, cylindrical, greenish gray in color, 

 covered with a fine silvery down, and beaded 

 with transparent balsam, very rich and precious- 

 looking, standing erect like casks on the topmost 

 branches. If possible, the inside of the cone is 

 still more beautiful. The scales and bracts are 

 tinged with red, and the seed wings are purple 

 with bright iridescence. 



Abies concolor, the white silver fir, grows best 

 about two thousand feet lower than the magni- 

 fica. It is nearly as large, but the branches are 

 less regularly pinnated and whorled, the leaves 

 are longer, and instead of standing out around 

 the branchlets or turning up and clasping them 

 they are mostly arranged in two horizontal or 

 ascending rows, and the cones are less than half 

 as large. The bark of the magnifica is reddish 

 purple and closely furrowed, that of the concolor 

 is gray and widely furrowed, — a noble pair, ri- 

 valed only by the Abies grandis, amabilis, and 

 nobilis of the forests of Oregon, Washington, 

 and the Northern California Coast Kange. But 

 none of these northern species form pure forests 

 that in extent and beauty approach those of the 

 Sierra. 



