274 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



The cones are bright grass-green in color, 

 about two and a half inches long, one and a half 

 wide, and are made up of thirty or forty strong, 

 closely packed, rhomboidal scales with four to 

 eight seeds at the base of each. The seeds are 

 extremely small and light, being only from an 

 eighth to a fourth of an inch long and wide, in- 

 cluding a filmy surrounding wing, which causes 

 them to glint and waver in falling and enables 

 the wind to carry them considerable distances 

 from the tree. 



The faint lisp of snowflakes as they alight is 

 one of the smallest sounds mortal can hear. The 

 sound of falling Sequoia seeds, even when they 

 happen to strike on flat leaves or flakes of bark, 

 is about as faint. Very different is the bumping 

 and thudding of the f ailing cones. Most of them 

 are cut off by the Douglas squirrel and stored 

 for the sake of the seeds, small as they are. In 

 the calm Indian summer these busy harvesters 

 with ivory sickles go to work early in the morning, 

 as soon as breakfast is over, and nearly all day 

 the ripe cones fall in a steady pattering, bumping 

 shower. Unless harvested in this way they dis- 

 charge their seeds and remain on the trees for 

 many years. In fruitful seasons the trees are 

 fairly laden. On two small specimen branches 

 one and a half and two inches in diameter I 

 counted four hundred and eighty cones. No 

 other California conifer produces nearly so many 



