Old specimens, bearing cones
about as big as pineapples, may sometimes be found clinging to rifted
rocks at an elevation of seven or eight thousand feet, whose highest
branches scarce reach above one's shoulders.
[Illustration: SILVER PINE 210 FEET HIGH. (THE FORM GROWING IN YOSEMITE
VALLEY.)]
I have oftentimes feasted on the beauty of these noble trees when they
were towering in all their winter grandeur, laden with snow--one mass of
bloom; in summer, too, when the brown, staminate clusters hang thick
among the shimmering needles, and the big purple burs are ripening in
the mellow light; but it is during cloudless wind-storms that these
colossal pines are most impressively beautiful. Then they bow like
willows, their leaves streaming forward all in one direction, and, when
the sun shines upon them at the required angle, entire groves glow as if
every leaf were burnished silver. The fall of tropic light on the royal
crown of a palm is a truly glorious spectacle, the fervid sun-flood
breaking upon the glossy leaves in long lance-rays, like mountain water
among boulders. But to me there is something more impressive in the fall
of light upon these Silver Pines.
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