_Betula occidentalis_, the only birch, is a small, slender tree
restricted to the eastern flank of the range along stream-sides below
the pine-belt, especially in Owen's Valley.
Alder, Maple, and Nuttall's Flowering Dogwood make beautiful bowers over
swift, cool streams at an elevation of from 3000 to 5000 feet, mixed
more or less with willows and cottonwood; and above these in lake basins
the aspen forms fine ornamental groves, and lets its light shine
gloriously in the autumn months.
The Chestnut Oak (_Quercus densiflora_) seems to have come from the
coast range around the head of the Sacramento Valley, like the
_Chamaecyparis_, but as it extends southward along the lower edge
of the main pine-belt it grows smaller until it finally dwarfs to a mere
chaparral bush. In the coast mountains it is a fine, tall, rather
slender tree, about from sixty to seventy-five feet high, growing with
the grand _Sequoia sempervirens_, or Redwood. But unfortunately it
is too good to live, and is now being rapidly destroyed for tan-bark.
Besides the common Douglas Oak and the grand _Quercus Wislizeni_ of
the foot-hills, and several small ones that make dense growths of
chaparral, there are two mountain-oaks that grow with the pines up to an
elevation of about 5000 feet above the sea, and greatly enhance the
beauty of the yosemite parks.
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