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THE TREES OF
YOSEMITE

THE TREES OF
YOSEMITE

INTRODUCTION

Tree Study in the Yosemite

Yosemite National Park is an excellent laboratory for the study of trees, inasmuch as it preserves for us a cross section from the foothills to the crest of the Sierra Nevada, with wide differences of elevation and exposure. The influence of varying conditions of soil and climate is ever before the observer; in the Yosemite Valley itself these varying conditions are peculiarly concentrated in a small area by the high granite walls along the north and south, which give a wide range of temperature.

Then, too, the forests of the Pacific slope, with their magnificent stands of pine and fir and redwood, are Inure restricted in kinds of trees than those of the Eastern states, and the beginner can therefore attack the subject with less confusion.

The displays at the Yosemite Museum may be made most helpful with their specimens of bark and needles, illustrations showing the work of such enemies as insects and fungi, and a very interesting collection of charts and exhibits which portray the life zones. In the grounds of the Ahwahnee Hotel a number of trees from the higher mountains have been planted, in addition to those already at hand. To draw a hard and fast line between trees and shrubs is often difficult. For the purposes of this book we have taken as the boundary a height of twenty-five feet in the habitual appearance of the plant in our region. We have omitted several species which do attain this minimum height at times but not frequently enough to be familiar as trees. Some of the willows may be cited under this head, and the cherries, with such shrubs as the manzanita and certain kinds of Ceanothus, or wild lilac.

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