It is a little over eight feet in diameter
and about 220 feet high. Climbing these grand trees, especially when
they are waving and singing in worship in wind-storms, is a glorious
experience. Ascending from the lowest branch to the topmost is like
stepping up stairs through a blaze of white light, every needle
thrilling and shining as if with religious ecstasy.
Unfortunately there are but few sugar pines in the Valley, though in
the King's yosemite they are in glorious abundance. The incense cedar
(Libocedrus decurrens) with cinnamon-colored bark and yellow-green
foliage is one of the most interesting of the Yosemite trees. Some of
them are 150 feet high, from six to ten feet in diameter, and they are
never out of sight as you saunter among the yellow pines. Their bright
brown shafts and towers of flat, frondlike branches make a striking
feature of the landscapes throughout all the seasons. In midwinter, when
most of the other trees are asleep, this cedar puts forth its flowers
in millions,--the pistillate pale green and inconspicuous, but the
staminate bright yellow, tingeing all the branches and making the trees
as they stand in the snow look like gigantic goldenrods. The branches,
outspread in flat plumes and, beautifully fronded, sweep gracefully
downward and outward, except those near the top, which aspire; the
lowest, especially in youth and middle age, droop to the ground,
overlapping one another, shedding off rain and snow like shingles, and
making fine tents for birds and campers.
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