Incense Cedar. This is commonly found all over the region at elevations below 7500 feet, though its chief habitat is at elevations of 3500 to 6000 feet. It grows to a height of fifty to one hundred and fifty feet, with a strongly conical trunk, very thick at the base, and gradually diminishing in size upward. The bark is thick, red-brown, loose and fibrous, and when the tree is old, broken into prominent heavy longitudinal furrows. The cones are red-brown, oblong-ovate when closed, three-fourths to an inch long.
Shasta Fir. This is found on the summits, slopes and shores of Lake Tahoe, and to levels 6200 feet in elevation on the slopes and summits directly connected with the main range. It is found along the Mount Pluto ridge. It is essentially a tree of the mountains, where the annual precipitation ranges from fifty inches upward. In the Tahoe region it is locally known as the red fir. Sometimes it is called the red bark fir and golden fir. It grows from sixty to even one hundred and seventy-five feet high with trunk one to five feet in diameter and a narrowly cone-shaped crown composed of numerous horizontal strata of fan-shaped sprays. The bark on young trees is whitish or silvery, on old trunks dark red, very deeply and roughly fissured. The cones when young are of a beautiful dull purple, when mature becoming brown.
| An Alpine White Pine, defying the storms,
on the north slope of Mt. Rose, 9,500 Ft. Click photo to see full-sized. |
White Pine. This is found on northern slopes as low down as 6500 feet, though it generally ranges above 7000 feet, and is quite common. It sometimes is called the silver pine, and generally in the Tahoe region, the mountain pine. It grows to a height of from fifty to one hundred and seventy-five feet, the branches slender and spreading or somewhat drooping, and mostly confined to the upper portion of the shaft. The trunk is from one to six feet in diameter and clothed with a very smooth though slightly checked whitish or reddish bark. The needles are five (rarely four) in a place, very slender, one to three and three-fourths inches long, sheathed at the base by thinnish narrow deciduous scales, some of which are one inch long. The cones come in clusters of one to seven, from six to eight or rarely ten inches long, very slender when closed and usually curved towards the tip, black-purple or green when young, buff-brown when ripe. It is best recognized by its light-gray smooth bark, broken into squarish plates, its pale-blue-green foliage composed of short needles, and its pendulous cones so slender as to give rise to the name "Finger-Cone Pine."
Sugar Pine. This is found on the lower terraces of Tahoe, fringing the region with a sparse and scattering growth, but it is not found on the higher slopes of the Sierra. On the western side its range is nearly identical with that of the red fir. It grows from eighty to one hundred and fifty feet high, the young and adult trees symmetrical, but the aged trees commonly with broken summits or characteristically flat-topped with one or two long arm-like branches exceeding shorter ones. The trunk is from two to eight feet in diameter, and the bark brown or reddish, closely fissured into rough ridges. The needles are slender, five in a bundle, two to three and a half inches long. The cones are pendulous, borne on stalks at the end of the branches, mostly in the very summit of the tree, very long-oblong, thirteen to eighteen inches long, four to six inches in diameter when opened.
This pine gains its name from its sugary exudation, sought by the native tribes, which forms hard white crystallized nodules on the upper side of fire or ax wounds in the wood. This flow contains resin, is manna-like, has cathartic properties, and is as sweet as cane-sugar. The seeds are edible. Although very small they are more valued by the native tribes than the large seeds of the Digger Pine on account of their better flavor. In former days, when it came October, the Indians went to the high mountains about their valleys to gather the cones. They camped on the ridges where the sugar pines grow and celebrated their sylvan journey by tree-climbing contests among the men. In these latter days, being possessed of the white man's ax, they find it more convenient to cut the tree down. It is undoubtedly the most remarkable of all pines, viewed either from the standpoint of its economic value or sylvan interest. It is the largest of pine trees, considered whether as to weight or girth, and more than any other tree gives beauty and distinction to the Sierran forest.—Jepson.
The long cones found in abundance about Tahoe Tavern are those of the sugar pine.
Yellow Pine and Jeffrey Pine. These are practically one and the same, though the latter is generally regarded as a variety and the former the type. Mr. Leiberg says:
The two forms differ chiefly in the size of the cones, in the tint and odor of the foliage, and in the color and thickness of the bark, differences which are insufficient to constitute specific characters. The most conspicuous of the above differences is that in the size of the cones, which may seemingly hold good if only a few hundred trees are examined. But when one comes to deal with thousands of individuals the distinction vanishes. It is common to find trees of the Jeffrey type as to foliage and bark that bear the big cones, and the characteristic smaller cones of the typical yellow pine, both at the same time and on the same individual, while old cones strewn about on the ground indicate that in some seasons trees of the Jeffrey type produce only small-sized cones. The odor and the color of leaves and bark are more or less dependent on soil conditions and the inherent vitality of the individual tree, and the same characters are found in specimens belonging to the yellow and Jeffrey pine. It is noticeable that the big-cone variety preferably grows at considerable elevation and on rocky sterile ground, while the typical form of the yellow pine prevails throughout the lower regions and on tracts with a more generous soil.
The yellow pine has a wider range than any other of the Tahoe conifers, though on the high, rocky areas, south and west of Rubicon Springs it is lacking. It crosses from the western slopes to the eastern sides of the Sierras and down into the Tahoe basin over the heads of Miller and McKinney Creeks, in both places as a thin line, or rather as scattering trees mixed with Shasta fir and white pine.
It grows from sixty to two hundred and twenty-five feet high with trunk two to nine feet in diameter. The limbs in mature trees are horizontal or even drooping. The bark of typical trees is tawny yellow or yellow-brown, divided by fissures into large smoothish or scaly-surfaced plates which are often one to four feet long and one-half to one and a quarter feet wide. The needles are in threes, five to ten inches long; the cones reddish brown.