42 FOREST TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



but semi-plumed with longer and more varying leaves clothe 

 them from the base to from one to two hundred feet or more; 

 body two to six or seldom eight feet in diameter; but here 

 only sixty to seventy-five feet, and rarely over two feet 

 through, and in sheltered twilight shades altogether more 

 open, lighter green, and delicate soft grey-green or glaucous 

 hue most manifest below, or shimmering in the breeze, such 

 sensitive forms and foliage in the play of lights and shadows 

 is spirit-like, fairy, and sportive in the highest degree. And 

 then behold the bright enlivening contrast of lighter vivid 

 citrined-green verdure of new and tender leaf, fringing the 

 new-born spring tips, her dark mantle now adorned, as 

 it were, with new floral ornaments, or rather apart from all 

 illusion — infantile sprays of exquisite beauty; delicate and 

 drooping, confiding and reliant as the innocent babe on the 

 breast of the mother — never yet excelled by any object of 

 decorative art, nor ever surpassed in the exhilarating and 

 refreshing odors they exhale — the delight and gladness of 

 youth, the joy of age — rejuvenating ethers to the enfeebled, 

 traditional restorer of the invalid, grace of the grove, beauty 

 of the lawn! The scattered branches long and slender, of 

 about equal diameter three fourths their length, horizontal, 

 or the lower drooping with the easy upward sweep and spring 

 awaiting the wintry snows and storms north ; here, perfectly 

 level, and free as the toss of the zephyr itself. Bark of young 

 trees and branches nearly smooth, gray, bloched with lichens; 

 old trees, coarse, rough-furrowed, inclined to a dark shade 

 of red, a very slight bruise, or the scarf removed, reveals a 

 very brilliant bright pink-purple color. Cones pendant 

 from the tips of very numerous slender hairy twiglets ; scales 

 about thirty, roundish and thin, slightly furred, included 

 bract on the back of the scale, blunt ; cones an inch or more 

 in length, oblong cylinder-like, somewhat pointed; seeds 

 (about two sixteenths of an inch long), about as long as width 

 of the wing, and this three and one half times longer — a few 

 nit-like glands on the lower side of the seed. The northern 

 form has the usual decided spruce drooping habit, as before 

 suggested; leaves more densely set, and even crowded, and 

 so distributed more promiscuously on the upper side of twigs 

 — or less strictly observant of the two-rowed character, for 

 although spirally set, upon a short raised base, and this still 

 left on when the leaves fall away — they usually so twist at 

 the base as to appear two-rowed ; line-like leaves, though 

 variable, are often three quarters of an inch long, blunt, sap- 

 green above, two lines of bloomy-gray beneath ; usually pre- 

 serves the dense low bowing branches from little above the 

 ground, so on aloft, inclosing a neat warm open canopy within, 

 by the lap and overlying boughs closing at their tops; this 

 greatly serves to keep the brooded soil warm, for the roots 



