The most beautiful of all the California conifers: hemlock spruce (Tsuga pattoniana)

High-altitude trees typically are storm-beaten. The hemlock spruce, which may grow singly or in thickets above timberline at exposed ridge-tops, sometimes show a shrubby krummholz form—expressing its life history of cold and windy conditions. Beneath the zones of heavy wind-currents, taller specimen—from eighty to a hundred feet high and from two to four feet in diameter—are found [1]. John Muir introduced the hemlock spruce as follows [1]:

The Hemlock Spruce is the most singularly beautiful of all the California coniferæ. So slender is its axis at the top, that it bends over and droops like the stalk of a nodding lily.  The branches droop also, and divide into innumerable slender, waving sprays, which are arranged in a varied, eloquent harmony that is wholly indescribable. Its cones are purple, and hang free, in the form of little tassels two inches long from all the sprays from top to bottom. Though exquisitely delicate and feminine in expression, it grows best where the snow lies deepest, far up in the region of storms, at an elevation of from 9000 to 9500 feet, on frosty northern slopes; but it is capable of growing considerably higher, say 10,500 feet.

John Muir, 1894.

Muir includes a sketch of a nodding, storm-beaten hemlock spruce (forty-feet high, he writes) in his book.

The currently accepted scientific name for hemlock spruce is Tsuga mertensiana. Muir used Tsuga pattoniana, one of the synonymous binomials of interest in nomenclature history, which also include binomial combinations such as Pinus mertensiana, Pinus pattoniania, Hesperopeuce mertensiana and Hesperopeuce pattoniana [2]. Common-name synonyms are mountain hemlock, alpine hemlock and black hemlock. This species occurs in mountain ranges from Alaska to California including British Columbia's mountains, the Olympic Mountains in Washington, the Coast and Cascade Ranges of Oregon, the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains [3]. 

Keywords: conifers, Pinales, Pinaceae, scientific names, nomenclature, natural history, Sierra Nevada.

References and more to explore

[1] John Muir: The Mountains of California. The Century Company, New York, 1894. Note: see pages 146 to 149  in the Penguin Classics Book print of 1985 with an introduction by Edward Hoagland.
[2] The Gymnosperm Database: Tsuga mertensiana [www.conifers.org/pi/Tsuga_mertensiana.php].
[3] USDA Forest Service: SPECIES: Tsuga mertensiana [www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/tsumer/all.html].

A rock tree, occupying the baldest domes and pavements: red cedar (Juniperus occidentalis)

Westerm junipers near Noble Lake along Pacific Crest Trail, Alpine County, California

Western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis) is found at high altitude in the Sierra Nevada: the shown trees (notice a second one in the background) grows on rock outcrops at the upper Noble Canyon, near Noble Lake along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) between Ebbett's Pass and the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness [1]. This area includes the headwaters of the East Fork of the Carson River. John Muir wrote about western junipers, which he encountered in the moraine lands of the Carson tributaries. He called these trees—having a bright cinnamon-colored bark—red cedars [2]:

The Juniper is preëminently a rock tree, occupying the baldest domes and pavements, where there is scarcely a handful of soil, at a height of from 7000 to 9500 feet. In such situations the trunk is frequently over eight feet in diameter, and not much more in height. The top is almost always dead in old trees, and great stubborn limbs push out horizontally that are mostly broken and bare at the ends, but densely covered and embedded here and there with bossy mounds of gray foliage. Some are mere weathered stumps, as broad as long, decorated with a few leafy sprays, reminding one of the crumbling towers of some ancient castle scantily draped with ivy. Only upon the head waters of the Carson have I found this species established on good moraine soil.

John Muir, 1894.

The typically exposed, burly junipers of open alpine woods and rocky slopes suffer strong winds and avalanches. Yet, individual giants reach an estimated age of 2000 years and older [2,3].

Keywords: conifers, Pinales, Cupressaceae, natural history, Sierra Nevada.

References and notes

[1] Alex Wierbinski: Juniper, Noble Canyon, Carson-Iceberg Wilderness. Posted on November 15, 2011 [tahoetowhitney.org/content/juniper-noble-canyon-carson-iceberg-wilderness].
[2] John Muir: The Mountains of California. The Century Company, New York, 1894. Note: see pages 144 to 146  in the Penguin Classics Book print of 1985 with an introduction by Edward Hoagland.
[3] The University of Texas at Austin, Native Plant Database: Juniperus occidentalis Hook. [www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=JUOC].

King of the alpine woods: mountain pine (Pinus monticola)

The mountain pine or western white pine (Pinus monticola) is currently listed as “Near Threatened.” The overall population of this species—native to western North America (British Columbia, Alberta, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Nevada, California)—is probably decreasing due to logging, fire suppression, a lack of regeneration and pine blister rust [1]. In 1948, Donald Culross Peattie already mentioned the western white pine as a valuable timber tree fetching a higher price than the western red cedar or the Douglas fir when growing side by side with this species [2].

In the 19th century, when John Muir was exploring and describing the forests of the Sierra Nevada, the western mountain pine population was probably in healthier shape. Muir notes the mountain pine's close relation to the sugar pine (the sugar of which he calls the best of sweets) and glorifies its strength and noblesse with tones echoing his praise for Pinus lambertiana [3]:

The Mountain Pine is king of the alpine woods, brave, hardy, and long-lived, towering grandly above its companions, and becoming stronger and more imposing just where other species begin to crouch and disappear. At its best it is usually about ninety feet high and five or six in diameter, though a specimen is often met considerably larger than this. The trunk is as massive and as suggestive of enduring strength as that of an oak.

John Muir, 1894.

Muir also states that individual storm-proven trees may reach the grand old age of 1000 years [3].

Keywords: conifers, Pinales, Pinaceae, white pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola), natural history, Sierra Nevada.

References and notes

[1] The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: Pinus monticola [www.iucnredlist.org/details/42383/0].
[2] Donald Culross Peattie: A Natural history of North American Trees. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 2007 (first Copyright by D. C. Peattie in 1948); pp. 37-45.
[3] John Muir: The Mountains of California. The Century Company, New York, 1894. Note: see pages 143 to 144  in the Penguin Classics Book print of 1985 with an introduction by Edward Hoagland.

A well-proportioned, rather handsome little pine: two-leaved, or tamarack pine (Pinus contorta, var. Murrayana)

John Muir (1838-1914) wrote enthusiastically about noble and giant trees—the giants of the Sierra Nevada's lower zones—such as the big tree, incense-cedar, Douglas spruce, sugar pine (and its nanómba), ponderosa pine and silver firs. But he also did justice to the smaller evergreens and dwarf trees. Pinus contorta subsp. murrayana, the tamarack or Sierra lodgepole pine, was described by him as “a well-proportioned, rather handsome little pine,” frequently occurring in the high-elevation, alpine forests [1]:

This species forms the bulk of the alpine forests, extending along the range, above the fir zone, up to a height of from 8000 to 9500 feet above the sea, growing in beatuiful order upon moraines that are scarcely changed as yet by post-glacial weathering. Compared with the giants of the the lower zones, this is a small tree, seldom attaining a height of a hundred feet. The largest specimen I ever measured was ninety feet in height, and a little over six in diameter four feet from the ground. The average height of mature trees throughout the entire belt is probably not far from fifty or sixty heet, with a diameter of two feet.

John Muir, 1894.

Keywords: conifers, Pinales, Pinaceae, tree size, natural history, Sierra Nevada.

References and more to explore

[1] John Muir: The Mountains of California. The Century Company, New York, 1894. Note: see pages 141 to 143  in the Penguin Classics Book print of 1985 with an introduction by Edward Hoagland.

King of all the conifers: Sequoia gigantea

John Muir (1838-1914) is known as a preservationist, who triggered the modern conservation movement at the end of the 19th century. His writings about nature inspire thinking in terms of biodiversity. His book The Mountains of California includes a chapter with the title The Forests, in which he puts down his observations about and around trees of California's Sierra Nevada. Muir had an obvious instinct for nobility, injecting a sound of arboretal racism into his texts, when he compared trees of the America's North West [1]:

Between the heavy pine and Silver Fir belts we find the Big Tree, the king of all the conifers in the world, “the noblest of a noble race.”

John Muir, 1894.

With “Silver Fir belt” he refers to the main forest belt of  “two noble firs,” the white silver fir and magnificent silver fir (Abies concolor and Abies magnifica, respectively).

Muir's noble “Big Tree” (Sequioa gigantea) of the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada is today known by scientific and common-name synonyms as well as spelling variations including Sequoiadendron giganteum, Wellingtonia gigantea, bigtree, giant sequoia, Sierran redwood and Sierra-redwood [2-4]. The currently accepted scientific name is Sequoiadendron giganteum (Lindl.) Buchholz [4].

Keywords: anthropocentrism, conifers, order Pinales, family Cupressaceae, subfamily Sequoioideae, natural history, taxonomy.

References and more to explore

[1] John Muir: The Mountains of California. The Century Company, New York, 1894. Note: see pages 128 to 141  in the Penguin Classics Book print of 1985 with an introduction by Edward Hoagland.
[2] The Gymnosperm Database: Sequoiadendron giganteum (Lindley) J. Buchholz 1939 [www.conifers.org/cu/Sequoiadendron.php].
[3] ARKIVE: Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) [www.arkive.org/giant-sequoia/sequoiadendron-giganteum].
[4] USDA Forest Service Index of Species Information: Sequoiadendron giganteum [www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/seqgig/all.html].

Charmingly symmetrical evergreens: white silver fir and magnificent silver fir

In the book The Mountains of California John Muir (1838-1914) presents his observations of animals and plants of the Sierra Nevada, which he describes with factual details, but also with emotional attachment and anthropocentric expressions. In his narrative, trees are curious, brave, graceful, noble, magnificent, majestic, kingly beautiful, finely balanced or exquisitely harmonious. The white silver fir (Abies concolor) and the magnificent silver fir, or red fir (Abies magnifica) are charmingly symmetrical.

The white silver fir is charmingly symmetrical in its youth [1]:

We come now to the most regularly planted of all the main forest belts, composed almost exclusively of two noble firs—A. concolor and A. magnifica. It extends with no marked interruption for 450 miles, at an elevation of from 5000 to nearly 9000 feet above the sea. In its youth A. concolor is a charmingly symmetrical tree with branches regularly whorled in level collars around its whitish-gray axis, which terminates in a strong, hopeful shoot.

John Muir, 1894.

Muir then compares the magnificent silver fir with the white silver fir [1]:

This [A. magnifica] is the most charmingly symmetrical of all the giants of the Sierra woods, far surpassing its companion species in this respect, and easily distinguished from it by the purplish-red bark, which is also more closely furrowed than that of the white, and by its larger cones, more regularly whorled and fronded branches, and by its leaves, which are shorter, and grow all around the branchlets and point upward.

In size, these two Silver Firs are about equal, the magnifica perhaps a little the taller. Specimen from 200 to 250 feet high are not rare on well-ground moraine soil, at an elevation of from 7500 to 8500 feet above sea-level. The largest that I measured stands back three miles from the brink of the north wall of Yosemite Valley. Fifteen years ago it was 240 feet high, with a diameter of a little more than five feet. 

John Muir, 1894.

And it is worth to read on, since Muir charmingly writes about the wildflowers growing gloriously within and between the fir stands.

Keywords: anthropocentrism, adjectives, conifers, Pinaceae, natural history, nature, Sierra Nevada.

References and more to explore

[1] John Muir: The Mountains of California. The Century Company, New York, 1894. Note: see pages 122 to 128  in the Penguin Classics Book print of 1985 with an introduction by Edward Hoagland.