|
THE most influential of the
Valley trees is the yellow pine (Pirtus ponderosa). It attains its noblest
dimensions on beds of water-washed, coarsely-stratified moraine material,
between the talus slopes and meadows, dry on the surface, well-watered below
and where not too closely assembled in groves the branches reach nearly to
the ground, forming grand spires two hundred to two hundred and twenty feet
in height. The largest that I have measured is standing alone almost
opposite the Sentinel Rock, or a little to the westward of it. It is a
little over eight feet in diameter and about two hundred and twenty feet
high. Climbing these grand trees, especially when they are waving and
singing in worship in windstorms, 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
cinnamoncolored bark and yellow-green foliage is one of the most interesting
of the Yosemite trees. Some of them are one hundred and fifty 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, frond-like 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. This tree frequently lives more
than a thousand years and is well worthy its place beside the great pines
and the Douglas spruce.
The two largest specimens I
know of the Douglas spruce, about eight feet in diameter, are growing at the
foot of the Liberty Cap near the Nevada Fall, and on the terminal moraine of
the small residual glacier that lingered in the shady Illilouette Caņon.
After the conifers, the most
important of the Yosemite trees are the oaks, two species; the California
live-oak (Quercus agrifolia), with black trunk, reaching a thickness of from
four to nearly seven feet, wide spreading branches and bright
deeply-scalloped leaves. It occupies the greater part of the broad sandy
flats of the upper end of the Valley, and is the species that yields the
acorns so highly prized by the Indians and woodpeckers.
The other species is the
mountain live-oak, or gold-cup oak (Quercus chrysolepis), a sturdy
mountaineer of a tree, growing mostly on the earthquake taluses and benches
of the sunny north wall of the Valley. In tough, unwedgeable, knotty
strength, it is the oak of oaks, a magnificent tree.
The largest and most
picturesque specimen in the Valley is near the foot of the Tenaya Fall, a
romantic spot seldom seen on account of the rough trouble of getting to it.
It is planted on three huge boulders and yet manages to draw sufficient
moisture and food from this craggy soil to maintain itself in good health.
It is twenty feet in circumference, measured above a large branch between
three and four feet in diameter that has been broken off. The main knotty
trunk seems to be made up of craggy granite boulders like those on which it
stands, being about the same color as the mossy, lichened boulders and about
as rough. Two moss-lined caves near the ground open back into the trunk, one
on the north side, the other on the west, forming picturesque, romantic
seats. The largest of the main branches is eighteen feet and nine inches in
circumference, and some of the long pendulous branch- lets droop over the
stream at the foot of the fall where it is gray with spray. The leaves are
glossy yellow-green, ever in motion from the wind from the fall. It is a
fine place to dream in, with falls, cascades, cool rocks lined with hypnum
three inches thick; shaded with maple, dogwood, alder, willow; grand clumps
of lady- ferns where no hand may touch them; light filtering through
translucent leaves; oaks fifty feet high; lilies eight feet high in a filled
lake basin near by, and the finest libocedrus groves and tallest ferns and
goldenrods.
In the main river caņon below
the Vernal Fall and on the shady south side of the Valley there are a few
groves of the silver fir (Abies concolor), and superb forests of the
magnificent species around the rim of the Valley.
On the tops of the domes is
found the sturdy, storm-enduring red cedar (Juniperus occidentalis). It
never makes anything like a forest here, but stands out separate and
independent in the wind, clinging by slight joints to the rock, with scarce
a handful of soil in sight of it, seeming to depend chiefly on snow and air
for nourishment, and yet it has maintained tough health on this diet for two
thousand years or more. The largest hereabouts are from five to six feet in
diameter and fifty feet in height.
The principal riverside trees
are poplar, a!- der, willow, broad-leaved maple, and Nuttall's flowering
dogwood. The poplar (Populus tnchocarpa), often called balm-of-Gilead from
the gum on its buds, is a tall tree, towering above its companions and
gracefully embowering the banks of the river. Its abundant foliage turns
bright yellow in the fall, and the Indian- summer sunshine sifts through it
in delightful tones over the slow-gliding waters when they are at their
lowest ebb.
Some of the involucres of the
flowering dogwood measure six to eight inches in diameter, and the whole
tree when in flower looks as if covered with snow. In the spring when the
streams are in flood it is the whitest of trees. In Indian summer the leaves
become bright crimson, making a still grander show than the flowers.
The broad-leaved maple and
the mountain maple are found mostly in the cool caflons at the head of the
Valley, spreading their branches in beautiful arches over the foaming
streams.
Scattered here and there are
a few other trees, mostly small - the mountain mahogany, cherry,
chestnut-oak, and laurel. The California nutmeg (Torreya californica), a
handsome evergreen, belonging to the yew family, forms small groves near the
cascades a mile or two below the foot of the Valley. |
