The majestic crowns, approaching each other in
bold curves, make a glorious canopy through which the tempered sunbeams
pour, silvering the needles, and gilding the massive boles and the
flowery, park-like ground into a scene of enchantment. On the most sunny
slopes the white-flowered, fragrant chamaebatia is spread like a carpet,
brightened during early summer with the crimson sarcodes, the wild rose,
and innumerable violets and gilias. Not even in the shadiest nooks will
you find any rank, untidy weeds or unwholesome darkness. In the north
sides of ridges the boles are more slender, and the ground is mostly
occupied by an underbrush of hazel, ceanothus, and flowering dogwood,
but not so densely as to prevent the traveler from sauntering where he
will; while the crowning branches are never impenetrable to the rays of
the sun, and never so interblended as to lose their individuality.
The Yellow Or Silver Pine
The Silver Pine (Pinus ponderosa), or Yellow Pine, as it is commonly
called, ranks second among the pines of the Sierra as a lumber tree, and
almost rivals the sugar pine in stature and nobleness of port. Because
of its superior powers of enduring variations of climate and soil, it
has a more extensive range than any other conifer growing on the Sierra.
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