18 • BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



THE BEAUTY OF BIG TREES AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT. 



The beauty of the Big Trees and their surroundings is nowhere more 

 vividly described than in Mr. John Muir's ''Mountains of California." 



He says: 



So exquisitely harmonious and finely balanced are even the very mightiest of these 

 monarchs of the woods in all their proportions and circumstances there never is any- 

 thing overgrown or monstrous-looking about them. On coming in sight of them for 

 the first time, you are likely to say, "Oh, see what beautiful, noble-looking trees are 

 towering there among the firs and pines!" their grandeur being in the meantime in 

 great part invisible, but to the living eye it will be manifested sooner or later, steal- 

 ing slowly on the senses, like the grandeur of Niagara, or the lofty Yosemite domes. 

 Their great size is hidden from the inexperienced observer as long as they are seen at 

 a distance in one harmonious view. 



When, however, you approach them and walk round them, you begin to wonder 

 at their colossal size and seek a measuring rod. These giants bulge considerably at 

 the base, but not more than is required for beauty and safety; and the only reason 

 that this bulging seems in some cases excessive is that only a comparatively small sec- 

 tion of the shaft is seen at once in near views. One that I measured in the Kings 

 River forest was 25 feet in diameter at the ground, and 10 feet in diameter 200 feet 

 above the ground, showing that the taper of the trunk as a whole is charmingly fine. 

 And when you stand back far enough to see the massive columns from the swelling 

 instep to the lofty summit dissolving in a dome of verdure, you rejoice in the 

 unrivaled display of combined grandeur and beauty. About 100 feet or more of the 

 trunk is usually branchless, Ixit its massive simplicity is relieved by the bark furrows, 

 which instead of making an irregular network run evenly parallel, like the fluting of 

 an architectural column, and to some extent by tufts of slender sprays that wave 

 lightly in the winds and cast flecks of shade, seeming to have been pinned on here 

 and there for the sake of beauty only. 



The young trees have slender, simple branches down to the ground, put on with 

 strict regularity, sharply aspiring at the top, horizontal about half way down, and 

 drooping in handsome curves at the base. By the time the sapling is five or six 

 hundred years old this spiry, feathery, juvenile habit merges into the firm, rounded, 

 dome form of middle age, which in turn takes on the eccentric picturesqueness of old 

 age. No other tree in the Sierra forest has foliage so densely massed or presents 

 outlines so firmly drawn and so steadily subordinate to a special type. A knotty 

 ungovernable-lo(jking branch 5 to 8 feet thick may be seen pushing out abruptly 

 from the smooth trunk, as if sure to throw the regular curve into confusion, but as 

 soon as the geneial outline is reached it stoi)S short and dissolves in spreading bosses 

 of law-abiding sprays, just as if every tree were growing beneath sume huge, invisible 

 bell glass, against whose sides every branch was being pressed and molded, yet some- 

 how indulging in so many small departures from the regular form that there is still 

 an appearance of freedom. 



The foliage of the saplings is dark l^luish green in color, while the older trees 

 ripen t(j a warm brownish-yellow tint like Libocedrus. The bark is rich cinnamon 

 brown, purplish in young trees and in shady portions of the old, while the ground 

 is covered with brown leaves and Ijurs, forming color masses of extraordinary rich- 

 ness, not to mention the flowers and underbrush that rejoice about them in their 

 reasons. Walk the Sequoia woods at any tinie of year and you will say that they 

 are the most beautiful and majestic on earth. Beautiful and impressive contrasts 

 meet you every wliere; the colors of tree and flower, rock and sky, light and shade, 

 strength and frailty, endurance and evanescence, tangles of supple hazel bushes, tree 

 pillars about as rigid as granite domes, roses and violets, the smallest of their kind, 

 blooming aromid the feet of the giants, and rugs of the lowly Chamaebatia where the 

 sunbeams fall. Then in winter the trees themselves break forth in bloom, myriads 

 of small four-sided staminate cones crowd the ends of the slender sprays, coloring 

 the whole tree, and when ripe dusting the air and the ground with golden pollen. 



The fertile cones are bright grass-green, measuring about 2 inches in length by Ij 

 in thickness, and are made up of about 40 firm rhomboidal scales densely packed, 

 with from 5 to 8 seeds at the base of each. A single cone, therefore, contains from 

 200 to 300 seeds, which are about a fourth of an inch long by three-sixteenths wide, 

 including a thin, flat margin that makes them go glancing and wavering in their fall 

 like a boy's kite. The fruitfulness of Sequoia may be illustrated by two specimen 

 branches 1^ and 2 inches in diameter on which I counted 480 cones. No other Sierra 

 conifer produces nearly so many seeds. Millions are ripened annually by a single 

 tree, and in a fruitful year the product of one of the northern groves would be enough 



