THE GREAT SUGAR PINE. 



THE GREAT SUGAR PINE. 



(Pinus Lambertiana.) 



" Beneath the forest's skirt I rest — 



Whose branching pines rise dark and high, 

 And hear the breezes of the weai 

 Among the threaded foliage sigh." — Bryant. 



ONE of the most magnificent pines the world ever saw 

 is the Great Sugar Pine of California ! From one 

 hundred and fifty to three hundred feet high, ten to 

 fifteen feet in diameter, the body remarkably elegant and 

 even of surface ; for the fine water-line ramse only serve to 

 smooth and soften the neutral-tint bark of this tallest priestly 

 pine; and what a wonderful column! perfectly cylindrical, 

 clean of branch or knot for hundreds of feet — usually two 

 thirds of the total height — as it stands conspicuously in the 

 midst of the forest, denizened among other wildwoods, yet 

 exalted above them ; and high up over all his kindred pines, 

 in some remote degree, like the lofty palm tree of the tropics 

 Among the trees, a mountaineer of the most decided and 

 commanding character, his top in sylvan glory and radiat- 

 ing its open but exceedingly long arms, widely spread afar 

 towards the horizon, oft as one vast long bow at ease, up- 

 wardly curving, exhilarant and free ; and yet they are neither 

 naked nor lank in the best types, but side-plumed and 

 grandly fringed by relatively short, lateral, and successively 

 diminishing branches and branchlets to their main extrem- 

 ity's end, whence pend from one to three, or even five, very 

 long cones tasseling their tips, from one to one and one half 

 feet long and three to five inches in diameter, suspended by 

 stems four to five inches long; color of cone light cinnamon- 

 brown or ripe-yellowish ; thinnish scales loosely overlapped, 

 oblong fan-form, without prickles, etc.; seeds oval, a little 

 compressed, lines long, wings widest below the middle, 

 obtuse; cotyledons, thirteen to fifteen. 



These long horizontal limbs may depend somewhat, more 

 or less in old age, like the bow still on its back, not alto- 

 gether unstrung, but they are never massed nor at all crowd- 

 ed, but always open so as to allow the wind — of the promi- 

 nent storm-exposed head — free passage through, or, in 

 extreme cases, only bending them leeward almost double, 

 like a true Damascus blade — hilt to point. This remarkable 

 length of limb, so tolerant of the tempest and vigor of recoil 

 with returning calm ; or, in other words, toughened strength 

 with elasticity, is quite characteristic. 



