Then
in winter the trees themselves break forth in bloom, myriads of small
four-sided staminate cones crowd the ends of the slender sprays,
coloring the whole tree, and when ripe dusting the air and the ground
with golden pollen. The fertile cones are bright grass-green, measuring
about two inches in length by one and a half in thickness, and are made
up of about forty firm rhomboidal scales densely packed, with from five
to eight seeds at the base of each. A single cone, therefore, contains
from two to three hundred seeds, which are about a fourth of an inch
long by three sixteenths wide, including a thin, flat margin that makes
them go glancing and wavering in their fall like a boy's kite. The
fruitfulness of Sequoia may be illustrated by two specimen branches one
and a half and two inches in diameter on which I counted 480 cones. No
other Sierra conifer produces nearly so many seeds. Millions are ripened
annually by a single tree, and in a fruitful year the product of one of
the northern groves would be enough to plant all the mountain-ranges of
the world. Nature takes care, however, that not one seed in a million
shall germinate at all, and of those that do perhaps not one in ten
thousand is suffered to live through the many vicissitudes of storm,
drought, fire, and snow-crushing that beset their youth.
Pages:
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215