THE JUNIPERS OF LAKE VALLEY 

 By Cornelius Beach Bradley 



NE day last summer, while driving through Lake Valley 



at the upper end of Lake Tahoe, I was surprised to see 

 among the yellow pines and tamaracks of the open forest cer- 

 tain trees that seemed to me new. I thought that I knew all 

 the trees in that part of the Sierra. My companion pronounced 

 them tamaracks (Pinus contorta var. murrayana) , which in- 

 deed they greatly resembled in stature and in habit. But the 

 tawny-gray fibrous bark and the finer sprays of foliage con- 

 vinced me that they could not be that. On examination at a 

 later time we found that they were junipers, but so unlike the 

 forms of Juniperus occidentalis with which we were familiar 

 that we were compelled to suppose them to be of a different 

 species — possibly one that had worked its way over from the 

 eastern side of the range through Luther's Pass. But on my 

 return to Berkeley the specimens of foliage and fruit which I 

 had brought with me were identified by Dr. H. M. Hall as un- 

 doubtedly those of /. occidentalis. 



The features of these trees which had puzzled me were : ( i ) 

 their unusual situation on the floor of a deep sheltered valley, 

 instead of on the exposed rocky slopes of the Sierra ridges; 

 (2) their close association with other conifers instead of being 

 scattered about singly in the open; (3) their stature, reaching 

 eighty or ninety feet — twice or thrice that of the tree in its 

 usual habitat; (4) their symmetrical shape and aspiring habit 

 which here persist even to old age. For, while this feature is 

 common throughout the whole group of cypress-like trees, and 

 regularly appears in the early life of this species, it is lost long 

 before maturity by those individuals which face the Sierra 

 storms unprotected.* 



Another feature which impressed us later was the frequent 

 occurrence in this group of the twin or double tree, as seen in 

 plates ecu and CCIV. This also occurs, but I think not so 



* See plates CC and CCI. 



