The cones are grayish-green when ripe, cylindrical, about from three to
four inches long by one and a half to two inches wide, and stand upright
on the upper branches.
Full-grown trees, favorably situated as to soil and exposure, are about
200 feet high, and five or six feet in diameter near the ground, though
larger specimens are by no means rare.
As old age creeps on, the bark becomes rougher and grayer, the branches
lose their exact regularity, many are snow-bent or broken off, and the
main axis often becomes double or otherwise irregular from accidents to
the terminal bud or shoot; but throughout all the vicissitudes of its
life on the mountains, come what may, the noble grandeur of the species
is patent to every eye.
MAGNIFICENT SILVER FIR, OR RED FIR
(_Abies magnifica_)
This is the most charmingly symmetrical of all the giants of the Sierra
woods, far surpassing its companion species in this respect, and easily
distinguished from it by the purplish-red bark, which is also more
closely furrowed than that of the white, and by its larger cones, more
regularly whorled and fronded branches, and by its leaves, which are
shorter, and grow all around the branchlets and point upward.
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