It must be noted, too, that "the bark is exceedingly variable, black-barked or brown-barked trees, roughly or narrowly fissured, are very common and in their extreme forms very different in trunk appearance from the typical or most-abundant 'turtle-back' form with broad, yellow or light brown plates."—Jepson.
Lodge Pole Pine. The range of this tree is almost identical with that of the Shasta fir, though here and there it is found at as low an altitude as 4500 feet. It loves the margins of creeks, glades and lakes situated at altitudes of 6000 feet and upward, where it usually forms a fringe of nearly pure growth in the wet and swampy portions of the ground. In the Tahoe region it is invariably called a tamarack or tamarack pine. It is a symmetrical tree commonly reaching as high as fifty to eighty feet, but occasionally one hundred and twenty-five feet. When stunted, however, it is only a few feet. The bark is remarkably thin, rarely more than one quarter inch thick, light gray in color, very smooth but flaking into small thin scales. There are only two needles to a bunch, in a sheath, one and a half to two and three quarters inches long. The cones are chestnut brown, one to one and three quarters inches long.
It is when sleeping under the lodge pole pines that you begin to appreciate their perfect charm and beauty. You unroll your blankets at the foot of a stately tree at night, unconscious and careless as to what tree it is. During the night, when the moon is at the full, you awaken and look up into a glory of shimmering light. The fine tapering shape, the delicate fairy-like beauty, instantly appeal to the sensitive soul and he feels he is in a veritable temple of beauty.
They are very sensitive trees. In many places a mere grass fire, quick and very fierce for a short time, has destroyed quite a number.
White Fir. This follows closely the range of the incense cedar, though in some places it is found as high as 8700 feet. It is one of the most perfect trees in the Sierras. Ranging from sixty to one hundred and fifty and even two hundred feet high, with a narrow crown composed of flat sprays and a trunk naked for one-third to one-half its height and from one to six feet in diameter, with a smooth bark, silvery or whitish in young trees, becoming thick and heavily fissured into rounded ridges on old trunks, and gray or drab-brown in color, it is readily distinguishable, with its companion, the red fir, by the regularity of construction of trunk, branch and branchlet. As Smeaton Chase expresses it, "The fine smooth arms, set in regular formation, divide and redivide again and again ad infinitum, weaving at last into a maze of exquisitely symmetrical twigs and branchlets."
Red Fir. The range of the red fir is irregular. It occurs on the Rubicon River and some of the headwaters of the west-flowing streams, reaching a general height of 6000 feet, though it is occasionally found as high as 7000 feet. In some parts of California this is known as Douglas Spruce, and Jepson, in his Silva of California definitely states:
The name "fir" as applied to the species is so well established among woodsmen that for the sake of intelligibility the combination Douglas Fir, which prevents confusion with the true firs and has been adopted by the Pacific Coast Lumberman's Association, is here accepted, notwithstanding that the name used by botanists, "Douglas Spruce" is actually more fitting on account of the greater number of spruce-like characteristics. It is neither true spruce, fir, nor hemlock, but a marked type of a distinct genus, namely, pseudotsuga.
It must not be confounded with the red silver fir (Abies Magnifica) so eloquently described as the chief delight of the Yosemite region by Smeaton Chase. It grows from seventy to two hundred and fifty or possibly three hundred and fifty feet high, and is the most important lumber tree of the country, considering the quality of its timber, the size and length of its logs, and the great amount of heavy wood and freedom from knots, shakes or defects. On young trees the bark is smooth, gray or mottled, sometimes alder-like; on old trunks one to six and a half inches thick, soft or putty-like, dark brown, fissured into broad heavy furrows. The young rapid growth in the open woods produces "red fir", the older slower growth in denser woods is "yellow fir". Every tree to a greater or lesser extent exhibits successively these two phases, which are dependent upon situation and exposure.
The chief difference between the white and red fir is in the spiculae or leaves. Those of the red fir are shorter, stubbier and stiffer than those of the white. The bark, however, is pretty nearly alike in young trees and shows a marked difference when they get to be forty to fifty years old.
The Alpine Spruce (Hesperopeuce Pattoniana Lemmon) is found only in the highest elevations. Common in Alaska it is limited in the Tahoe region to the upper points of forests that creep up along glacier beds and volcanic ravines, close to perpetual ice. It disappears at 10,000 feet altitude on Mt. Whitney and is found nowhere south of this point. On Tallac, Mt. Rose and all the higher peaks of the Tahoe region it is common, giving constant delight with its slender shaft, eighty to a hundred feet high, and with a diameter at its base of from six to twelve feet. It is only in the lower portions of the belt where it occurs. Higher it is reduced to low conical masses of foliage or prostrate creeping shrubs.