The Yosemite eBook

I have often feasted on the beauty of these noble trees when they were towering in all their winter grandeur, laden with snow—­one mass of bloom; in summer, too, when the brown, staminate clusters hang thick among the shimmering needles, and the big purple burrs are ripening in the mellow light; but it is during cloudless wind-storms that these colossal pines are most impressively beautiful.  Then they bow like willows, their leaves streaming forward all in one direction, and, when the sun shines upon them at the required angle, entire groves glow as if every leaf were burnished silver.  The fall of tropic light on the crown of a palm is a truly glorious spectacle, the fervid sun-flood breaking upon the glossy leaves in long lance-rays, like mountain water among boulders at the foot of an enthusiastic cataract.  But to me there is something more impressive in the fall of light upon these noble, silver pine pillars:  it is beaten to the finest dust and shed off in myriads of minute sparkles that seem to radiate from the very heart of the tree as if like rain, falling upon fertile soil, it had been absorbed to reappear in flowers of light.  This species also gives forth the finest wind music.  After listening to it in all kinds of winds, night and day, season after season, I think I could approximate to my position on the mountain by this pine music alone.  If you would catch the tone of separate needles climb a tree in breezy weather.  Every needle is carefully tempered and gives forth no uncertain sound each standing out with no interference excepting during head gales; then you may detect the click of one needle upon another, readily distinguishable from the free wind-like hum.

When a sugar pine and one of this species equal in size are observed together, the latter is seen to be more simple in manners, more lively and graceful, and its beauty is of a kind more easily appreciated; on the other hand it is less dignified and original in demeanor.  The yellow pine seems ever eager to shoot aloft, higher and higher.  Even while it is drowsing in autumn sun-gold you may still detect a skyward aspiration, but the sugar pine seems too unconsciously noble and too complete in every way to leave room for even a heavenward care.

The Douglas Spruce

The Douglas Spruce (Pseudotsuga Douglasii) is one of the largest and longest-lived of the giants that flourish throughout the main pine belt, often attaining a height of nearly 200 feet, and a diameter of six or seven feet.  Where the growth is not too close, the stout, spreading branches, covering more than half of the trunk, are hung with innumerable slender, drooping sprays, handsomely feathered with the short leaves which radiate at right angles all around them.  This vigorous tree is ever beautiful, welcoming the mountain winds and the snow as well as the mellow summer light; and it maintains its youthful freshness undiminished from century to century through a thousand storms.  It makes its finest appearance during the months of June and July, when the brown buds at the ends of the sprays swell and open, revealing the young leaves, which at first are bright yellow, making the tree appear as if covered with gay blossoms; while the pendulous bracted cones, three or four inches long, with their shell-like scales, are a constant adornment.