Sierra Journal, Summer of 1869, v. 3, 1869 [ca. 1887], Image 6

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 2018
• Subjects: Greenland; The Cones; Williamson
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn-sj3/6; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/jmn-sj3/article/1005/type/native/viewcontent/MuirReel31_Notebook_009_Img006.jpg

6 A stout burley enduring mountaineer attaining under favorable conditions a height of 150 feet & a diameter near the ground of 6 to 8 feet fairly entitling it to [the] rank [of one of] with the Sierra Giants. Of this genus there is but one species here. [There is] ? Another in South America & still another in Japan in company with trees that during the tertiary period in Greenland were also companions there. The cones & lvs [leaves] are very small like those of the arborvitae in the foliage & branchlets [are also like that tree] form[ing] flat plumes of a beautiful warm yellow green color also much like those of Arborvitae. Next after these I should place the Two-leaved Pine then Sabine Pine of the hot foothills, then the charming Alpine Hemlock [Williamson spruce] which do usually small one to 4 feet in diameter is the most elegant in form of all the Sierra coniferae. The axis droops as well as the closely set branches & the cones drooping in clusters over all the tree give it an exceedingly elegant & ornate appearance. A few specimens under specially favorable conditions may reach the height of 75 or 100 [80] feet in the trunk within a few feet from the ground maybe four or 5 feet in diameter but the average thickness [as] so far as I have seen [in the Sierra] is not over a foot or 18 inches & the height 50 feet. It is very tough & elastic & every winter it is laden with snow which lodges on its dense foliage & 7 binds it down & buries it, until released by the spring thaws sometimes not before the end of July on the north side of mountains. Not only the young saplings are those buried & put to sleep, but trees 40 feet high with trunks 6 inches or more thick. It is one of the bravest of the mountaineers & the most heavily beset by stress of storms yet at the same time the most delicately beautiful & graceful of all conifers. Next I suppose I should come to the Hickory Pine P. tuberculata [allennata] which I have not yet seen. They're the P. Albicaulis ...