WHITE PINE
(_Pinus flexilis_)
This species is widely distributed throughout the Rocky Mountains, and
over all the higher of the many ranges of the Great Basin, between the
Wahsatch Mountains and the Sierra, where it is known as White Pine. In
the Sierra it is sparsely scattered along the eastern flank, from Bloody
Canon southward nearly to the extremity of the range, opposite the
village of Lone Pine, nowhere forming any appreciable portion of the
general forest. From its peculiar position, in loose, straggling
parties, it seems to have been derived from the Basin ranges to the
eastward, where it is abundant.
It is a larger tree than the Dwarf Pine. At an elevation of about 9000
feet above the sea, it often attains a height of forty or fifty feet,
and a diameter of from three to five feet. The cones open freely when
ripe, and are twice as large as those of the _albicaulis_, and the
foliage and branches are more open, having a tendency to sweep out in
free, wild curves, like those of the Mountain Pine, to which it is
closely allied. It is seldom found lower than 9000 feet above sea-level,
but from this elevation it pushes upward over the roughest ledges to the
extreme limit of tree-growth, where, in its dwarfed, storm-crushed
condition, it is more like the white-barked species.
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