The Trees of the Valley
The most influential of the Valley trees is the yellow pine (_Pinus
ponderosa_). It attains its noblest dimensions on beds of water-washed,
coarsely-stratified moraine material, between the talus slopes and
meadows, dry on the surface, well-watered below and where not too
closely assembled in groves the branches reach nearly to the ground,
forming grand spires 200 to 220 feet in height. The largest that I have
measured is standing alone almost opposite the Sentinel Rock, or a
little to the westward of it. It is a little over eight feet in
diameter and about 220 feet high. Climbing these grand trees,
especially when they are waving and singing in worship in wind-storms,
is a glorious experience. Ascending from the lowest branch to the
topmost is like stepping up stairs through a blaze of white light,
every needle thrilling and shining as if with religious ecstasy.
Unfortunately there are but few sugar pines in the Valley, though in
the King’s yosemite they are in glorious abundance. The incense cedar
(_Libocedrus decurrens_) with cinnamon-colored bark and yellow-green
foliage is one of the most interesting of the Yosemite trees. Some of
them are 150 feet high, from six to ten feet in diameter, and they are
never out of sight as you saunter among the yellow pines. Their bright
brown shafts and towers of flat, frondlike branches make a striking
feature of the landscapes throughout all the seasons. In midwinter,
when most of the other trees are asleep, this cedar puts forth its
flowers in millions,—the pistillate pale green and inconspicuous, but
the staminate bright yellow, tingeing all the branches and making the
trees as they stand in the snow look like gigantic goldenrods. The
branches, outspread in flat plumes and, beautifully fronded, sweep
gracefully downward and outward, except those near the top, which
aspire; the lowest, especially in youth and middle age, droop to the
ground, overlapping one another, shedding off rain and snow like
shingles, and making fine tents for birds and campers. This tree
frequently lives more than a thousand years and is well worthy its
place beside the great pines and the Douglas spruce.
The two largest specimens I know of the Douglas spruce, about eight
feet in diameter, are growing at the foot of the Liberty Cap near the
Nevada Fall, and on the terminal moraine of the small residual glacier
that lingered in the shady Illilouette Cañon.
After the conifers, the most important of the Yosemite trees are the
oaks, two species; the California live-oak (_Quercus agrifolia_), with
black trunks, reaching a thickness of from four to nearly seven feet,
wide spreading branches and bright deeply-scalloped leaves. It occupies
the greater part of the broad sandy flats of the upper end of the
Valley, and is the species that yields the acorns so highly prized by
the Indians and woodpeckers.
The other species is the mountain live-oak, or goldcup oak (_Quercus
chrysolepis_), a sturdy mountaineer of a tree, growing mostly on the
earthquake taluses and benches of the sunny north wall of the Valley.
In tough, unwedgeable, knotty strength, it is the oak of oaks, a
magnificent tree.
The largest and most picturesque specimen in the Valley is near the
foot of the Tenaya Fall, a romantic spot seldom seen on account of the
rough trouble of getting to it. It is planted on three huge boulders
and yet manages to draw sufficient moisture and food from this craggy
soil to maintain itself in good health. It is twenty feet in
circumference, measured above a large branch between three and four
feet in diameter that has been broken off. The main knotty trunk seems
to be made up of craggy granite boulders like those on which it stands,
being about the same color as the mossy, lichened boulders and about as
rough. Two moss-lined caves near the ground open back into the trunk,
one on the north side, the other on the west, forming picturesque,
romantic seats. The largest of the main branches is eighteen feet and
nine inches in circumference, and some of the long pendulous branchlets
droop over the stream at the foot of the fall where it is gray with
spray. The leaves are glossy yellow-green, ever in motion from the wind
from the fall. It is a fine place to dream in, with falls, cascades,
cool rocks lined with hypnum three inches thick; shaded with maple,
dogwood, alder, willow; grand clumps of lady-ferns where no hand may
touch them; light filtering through translucent leaves; oaks fifty feet
high; lilies eight feet high in a filled lake basin near by, and the
finest libocedrus groves and tallest ferns and goldenrods.
In the main river cañon below the Vernal Fall and on the shady south
side of the Valley there are a few groves of the silver fir (_Abies
concolor_), and superb forests of the magnificent species round the rim
of the Valley.
On the tops of the domes is found the sturdy, storm-enduring red cedar
(_Juniperus occidentalis_). It never makes anything like a forest here,
but stands out separate and independent in the wind, clinging by slight
joints to the rock, with scarce a handful of soil in sight of it,
seeming to depend chiefly on snow and air for nourishment, and yet it
has maintained tough health on this diet for two thousand years or
more. The largest hereabouts are from five to six feet in diameter and
fifty feet in height.
The principal river-side trees are poplar, alder, willow, broad-leaved
maple, and Nuttall’s flowering dogwood. The poplar (_Populus
trichocarpa_), often called balm-of-Gilead from the gum on its buds, is
a tall tree, towering above its companions and gracefully embowering
the banks of the river. Its abundant foliage turns bright yellow in the
fall, and the Indian-summer sunshine sifts through it in delightful
tones over the slow-gliding waters when they are at their lowest ebb.
Some of the involucres of the flowering dogwood measure six to eight
inches in diameter, and the whole tree when in flower looks as if
covered with snow. In the spring when the streams are in flood it is
the whitest of trees. In Indian summer the leaves become bright
crimson, making a still grander show than the flowers.
The broad-leaved maple and mountain maple are found mostly in the cool
cañons at the head of the Valley, spreading their branches in beautiful
arches over the foaming streams.
Scattered here and there are a few other trees, mostly small—the
mountain mahogany, cherry, chestnut-oak, and laurel. The California
nutmeg (_Torreya californica_), a handsome evergreen belonging to the
yew family, forms small groves near the cascades a mile or two below
the foot of the Valley.