Chapter 10 TREES AND FORESTS

The tree growth and the forest arrangement in the Yosemite National Park are among the grandest of such features on the globe, and they form one of the chief attractions of this heroic realm. The trees grow to enormous size and are distributed and grouped with crags, meadows, terraces, ca?ons-all in unmatched wild, artistic charm and sublimity. Though some areas are covered with growths tall and dense, they are free from gloom, and everywhere one may walk freely through them. They are broken and brightened with numerous sunny openings.

This splendid landscape gardening extends over the greater portion of the Park.

The sequoia, the largest and most imposing tree, is found in the lower reaches of the Park. Other characteristic trees are the sugar pine, king of the pines; the Douglas spruce, king of the spruces; and the hemlock, one of the loveliest trees upon the earth.

The Park has three groves of Big Trees (sequoias)-the Mariposa Grove, the Tuolumne Grove, and the Merced Grove, all of the species Sequoia gigantea. The Merced and Tuolumne groves are near the western boundary of the Park, several miles north of El Portal Station, while the Mariposa Grove is in the southwestern corner, about fifteen miles southeast of El Portal. The Tuolumne Grove has but about thirty-five trees, and the Merced Grove fewer than one hundred.

The Mariposa Grove contains about five hundred and fifty trees. Among these is the Grizzly Giant, which, according to the computation of Galen Clark, is six thousand years old. It has a diameter of nearly thirty feet and a height of two hundred and four feet. Evidently it was once much taller; its top probably was wrecked by lightning. Through the Wawona tree a roadway has been cut. A great number of these trees are between two hundred and twenty-five and two hundred and seventy-five feet in height. A few rise above three hundred feet.

In this Park are about thirty species of trees besides those above mentioned. Among them are a cedar and a juniper; two silver firs; yellow, lodge-pole, and six other species of pines. Among the broad-leafed trees are the oak, maple, aspen, laurel, and dogwood. There are forests of firs and lodge-pole pines.

The sugar pine grows to enormous size and has a noble appearance. Its cones are the largest produced by any conifer, occasionally reaching the length of nearly two feet. The yellow pine rivals the sugar pine in size and grows from four to ten feet in diameter and from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and twenty-five feet high. Among the flowering shrubs are the dogwood, manzanita, California lilac, wild syringa, chokeberry, thimbleberry, and California laurel.

I have seen the trees diminish in number, give place to wide prairies, and restrict their growth to the border of streams; ... have seen grassy plains change into a brown and sere desert; ... and have reached at length the westward slopes of the high mountain barrier which, refreshed by the Pacific, bear the noble forests of the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Range, and among them trees which are the wonder of the world. (Asa Gray.)