THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 121 



favorable weather. All along the Sierra for hun- 

 dreds of miles, on dry breezy autumn days, the 

 sunny spaces in the woods among the colossal 

 spires are in a whirl with these shining purple- 

 winged wanderers, notwithstanding the harvest- 

 ing squirrels have been working at the top of their 

 speed for weeks trying to cut off every cone before 

 the seeds were ready to swarm and fly. Sequoia 

 seeds have flat wings, and glint and glance in 

 their flight like a boy's kite. The dispersal of 

 juniper seeds is effected by the plum and cherry 

 plan of hiring birds at the cost of their board, 

 and thus obtaining the use of a pair of extra 

 good wings. 



Above the great fir belt, and below the ragged 

 beds and fringes of the dwarf pine, stretch the 

 broad dark forests of Pinus contorta, var. Mur- 

 rayana, usually called tamarack pine. On broad 

 fields of moraine material it forms nearly pure 

 forests at an elevation of about eight or nine 

 thousand feet above the sea, where it is a small, 

 well proportioned tree, fifty or sixty feet high 

 and one or two in diameter, with thin gray 

 bark, crooked much-divided straggling branches, 

 short needles in clusters of two, bright yellow 

 and crimson flowers, and small prickly cones. 

 The very largest I ever measured was ninety 

 feet in height, and a little over six feet in dia- 

 meter four feet above the ground. On moist 

 well-drained soil in sheltered hollows along 



