126 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



fine and pure a tone that the best azure of the 

 high sky seems to be condensed in them. 



Though apparently the most delicate and femi- 

 nine of all the mountain trees, it grows best 

 where the snow lies deepest, at an elevation of 

 from nine thousand to nine thousand five hun- 

 dred feet, in hollows on the northern slopes of 

 mountains and ridges. But under all circum- 

 stances and conditions of weather and soil, shel- 

 tered from the main currents of the winds or in 

 blank exposure to them, well fed or starved, it is 

 always singularly graceful in habit. Even at its 

 highest limit in the park, ten thousand five hun- 

 dred feet above the sea on exposed ridgetops, 

 where it crouches and huddles close together in 

 low thickets like those of the dwarf pine, it still 

 contrives to put forth its sprays and branches in 

 forms of irrepressible beauty, while on moist 

 well-drained moraines it displays a perfectly 

 tropical luxuriance of foliage, flower, and fruit. 



In the first winter storms the snow is often- 

 times soft, and lodges in the dense leafy branches, 

 pressing them down against the trunk, and the 

 slender drooping axis bends lower and lower as 

 the load increases, until the top touches the 

 ground and an ornamental arch is made. Then, 

 as storm succeeds storm and snow is heaped on 

 snow, the whole tree is at last buried, not again 

 to see the light or move leaf or limb until set 

 free by the spring thaws in June or July. Not 



