214 
THE MAMMALS OF MOUNT MAZAMA. 
in diameter at the height of a man's head. These trees often grow 
in clusters, half a dozen or more standing side by side, sometimes in 
a straight line, and so close together that the trunks are in actual 
contact at the bottom. On sloping ground the trunks are often 
curved downward at the base, from the pressure of the snow which 
covers the ground for 9 months of the year. The Alpine Hemlock, 
with its irregularly drooping branches, draped in long beards of gray 
and black lichen, is a beautiful and picturesque tree. The widely 
diflferent Noble Fir with which it is associated, is also a large and 
splendid tree. Owing to the relative shortness of its lower branches 
its usual form is cylindrical rather than conical. The branchlets, 
particularly the upper ones, stand out at right angles, giving an odd 
mathematical effect; but the crowning glory of Abies nobilis lies in 
its huge cones, with their leaf-like exserted green bracts, ivory white 
scales, and blood red seed-wings. 
The hemlock forest is dark and open, with very little under- 
growth, chiefly Vaccinium wyrtilloides, V. scoparium and Rabus 
lasiococcus^ with here and there scattered plants of Pyrola picta^ 
Chimaphila menziesii, C. umbellata, and Pedicnlaris racemosa. 
It is the home of the Camp Robber or Oregon Jay, the Evening 
Grosbeak, Red Crossbill, Pine Siskin, Three-toed Woodpecker, and 
Townsend's Solitaire; of the Alpine Flying Squirrel, Allen's Chip- 
munk, Western Marten, Columbia Deer, Lynx, and Oregon Puma. 
The Pumice Meadows. — The open pumice meadows of the 
rim of Crater Lake deserve a special word. Most of them are buried 
in snow until August and many of the snowbanks never entirely dis- 
appear. As soon as the bare ground is exposed to the warm sun it 
becomes dotted over with small plants which increase in abundance 
as the season advances, and furnish an important part of the food of 
certain small mammals. The most characteristic plants of these 
pumice meadows are Polygonum newberryi^ Phlox douglasii, Aplo- 
pappus bloomeri, Spraguea umbellata, Agoseris barbulata, Lupi- 
nus laxiHorus^ Antennaria alpina^ a small Arenaria^ and two or 
three species of Eriogonum*. These places are the chosen homes of 
*I am indebted to Mr. F. V. Coville for the specific determinations of these plants 
