306 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST.  [Vou. XXXIII. 
and Smilacina amplexicaulis, much like S. racemosa, were also 
noticed, and in places, Veratrum californicum, with its great 
plaited leaves, was very conspicuous. 
A second trip was made later in the summer to the higher 
Sierra of central California. My destination was Lake Tahoe, 
that beautiful mountain lake lying over 6000 feet above the sea, 
on the boundary between California and Nevada. It lies on 
the eastern slope of the mountains, and the surrounding coun- 
try is much more arid than the western slope of the Sierra. 
The lake is very deep— over 1600 feet in places —and the 
waters are marvelously clear and of an intense sapphire blue, 
such as I have never seen elsewhere except in tropical seas. 
Very little vegetation exists in the lake itself, and only in a few 
places are the shores at all marshy. 
The past summer was an exceptionally dry one, and I must 
confess to a feeling of disappointment in the flora of the sur- 
rounding country, which was nearly everywhere dry and dusty. 
Where the shores of the lake have been undisturbed there 
is a good growth of trees, some of quite large size. Some of 
the yellow pines were about 150 feet high and five feet in diam- 
eter, but the trees do not attain the dimensions of those in the 
great forest belt on the western slopes of the mountains. In 
most places the timber has been cut, and the shores present a 
miserable appearance. Besides the yellow pine, there is some 
sugar pine and tamarack (Pinus contorta, var. murryana), and 
the incense cedar (Libocedrus) and several firs are also not 
uncommon. 
The growing season is very short, and the trees must grow 
very slowly, to judge from stumps which were examined. This 
is especially true of the cedars. A stump, perhaps five feet in 
diameter, showed over 700 growth rings, and doubtless some 
of the largest trees were at least 1000 years old. The pines 
grow much more rapidly, none of the yellow pines examined 
being over 300 years old. 
Among the trees there is little undergrowth, but the exposed 
places and the hillsides are covered with an impenetrable 
thicket of Ceanothus, manzanita, and dwarf chestnut, with a 
sprinkling of other shrubs. 
