The needles are of a fine, warm,
yellow-green color, six to eight inches long, firm and elastic, and
crowded in handsome, radiant tassels on the upturning ends of the
branches. The cones are about three or four inches long, and two and
a half wide, growing in close, sessile clusters among the leaves.
The species attains its noblest form in filled-up lake basins,
especially in those of the older yosemites, and as we have seen, so
prominent a part does it form of their groves that it may well be called
the Yosemite Pine.
The Jeffrey variety attains its finest development in the northern
portion of the Range, in the wide basins of the McCloud and Pitt Rivers,
where it forms magnificent forests scarcely invaded by any other tree.
It differs from the ordinary form in size, being only about half as tall,
in its redder and more closely-furrowed bark grayish-green foliage, less
divided branches, and much larger cones; but intermediate forms come in
which make a clear separation impossible, although some botanists regard
it as a distinct species. It is this variety of ponderosa that climbs
storm-swept ridges alone, and wanders out among the volcanoes of the
Great Basin. Whether exposed to extremes of heat or cold, it is dwarfed
like many other trees, and becomes all knots and angles, wholly unlike
the majestic forms we have been sketching.
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