THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 123 



bogs and on sand dunes beside the sea where it 

 is pelted with salt scud, on high snowy moun- 

 tains and down in the throats'of extinct volcanoes ; 

 springing up with invincible vigor after every 

 devastating fire and extending its conquests 

 farther. 



The sturdy storm-enduring red cedar (Juni- 

 perus occidentalis) delights to dwell on the tops 

 of granite domes and ridges and glacier pave- 

 ments of the upper pine belt, at an elevation of 

 seven to ten thousand feet, where it can get 

 plenty of sunshine and snow and elbow-room 

 without encountering quick-growing overshadow- 

 ing rivals. They never make anything like a 

 forest, seldom come together even in groves, but 

 stand out separate and independent in the wind, 

 clinging by slight joints to the rock, living 

 chiefly on snow and thin air, and maintaining 

 tough health on this diet for two thousand years 

 or more, every feature and gesture expressing 

 steadfast dogged endurance. The largest are 

 usually about six or eight feet in diameter, and 

 fifteen or twenty in height. A very few are ten 

 feet in diameter, and on isolated moraine heaps 

 forty to sixty feet in height. Many are mere 

 stumps, as broad as high, broken by avalanches 

 and lightning, picturesquely tufted with dense 

 gray scalelike foliage, and giving no hint of dy- 

 ing. The staminate flowers are like those of the 

 libocedrus, but smaller ; the pistillate are incon- 



