The Lake of the Sky Part 29

[Ill.u.s.tration: Professor Fergusson at the Fergusson Meteorograph at Mt. Rose Observatory. 10,090 Feet]

[Ill.u.s.tration: An Alpine White Pine, Defying the Storms, on the North Slope of Mt. Rose, 9,500 Ft.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tallac, Lake Tahoe]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Looking North from Cave Rock, Lake Tahoe]

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE CHAPARRAL OF THE TAHOE REGION

The word _chaparral_ is a Spanish word, transferred bodily into our language, without, however, retaining its strict and original significance. In Spanish it means a plantation of evergreen oaks, or, thick bramble-bushes entangled with th.o.r.n.y shrubs in clumps. Hence, in the west, it has come to mean any low or scrub brush that thickly covers a hill or mountain-side. As there is a varied chaparral in the Tahoe region, it is well for the visitor to know of what it is mainly composed.

Experience has demonstrated that where the larger lumber is cut off close on the Sierran slopes of the Tahoe region the low bushy chaparral at once takes full possession. It seems to prevent the tree seeds from growing and thus is an effectual preventive to reforestation. This, however, is generally not so apparent east of the main range as it is on the western slopes. One of its chief elements is the manzanita (_Arctostaphylos patula_) easily distinguishable by the red wood of its stem and larger branches, glossy leaves, waxen blossoms (when in flower) and green or red berries in the early autumn.

The snow-bush abounds. It is a low sage-green bush, very th.o.r.n.y, hence is locally called "bide-a-wee" from the name given by the English soldiers to a very th.o.r.n.y bush they had to encounter during the Boer War. In the late days of spring and even as late as July it is covered with a white blossom that makes it glorious and attractive.

Then there is the thimble-berry with its big, light yellow, sprawling leaves, and its attractively red, thimble-shaped, but rather tasteless berries. The Indians, however, are very fond of them, and so are some of the birds and animals, likewise of the service berries, which look much like the blueberry, though their flavor is not so choice.

Here and there patches of the wild gooseberry add to the tangle of the chaparral. The gooseberries when ripe are very red, as are the currants, but they are armored with a tough skin completely covered with sharp, hairy thorns. In Southern California all the fruit of the wild _ribes_ have the thorns, but they do not compare in penetrating power and strength with those of the Tahoe gooseberries.

One of the most charming features of the chaparral is the mountain ash, especially when the berries are ripe and red. The Scotch name _rowan_ seems peculiarly appropriate. Even while the berries are yellow they are attractive to the eye, and alluring to the birds, but when they become red they give a splendid dash of rich color that sets off the whole mountain side.

The mountain mahogany is not uncommon (_Cereocarpus parvifolius_, Nutt.) and though its green flowers are inconspicuous, its long, solitary plumes at fruiting time attract the eye.

While the California laurel (_Umbellularia Californica_, Nutt.) often grows to great height, it is found in chaparral clumps on the mountain sides. It is commonly known as the bay tree, on account of the bay-like shape and odor of its leaves when crushed. It gives a spicy fragrance to the air and is always welcome to those who know it.

In many places throughout the mountains of the Tahoe region there are clumps or groves of wild cherry (_Prunus Demissa_, Walpers), the cherries generally ripening in September. But if one expects the ripe red _wild_ cherries to have any of the delicious richness and sweetness of the ripe Queen Anne or other good variety he is doomed to sad disappointment. For they are sour and bitter--bitter as quinine,--and that is perhaps the reason their juice has been extracted and made into medicine supposed to have extraordinary tonic and healing virtue.

The elder is often found (_Sambucus Glauca_, Nutt.), sometimes quite tall and at other times broken down by the snow, but bravely covering its bent and gnarled trunks and branches with dense foliage and cream-white blossom-cl.u.s.ters. The berries are always attractive to the eye in their purple tint, with the creamy blush on them, and happy is that traveler who has an expert make for him an elderberry pie, or distill the rich cordial the berries make.

Another feature of the chaparral often occupies the field entirely to itself, viz., the chamisal or greasewood (_Adenostoma fasciculatum_, Hook, and Arn.). Its small cl.u.s.tered and needle-like leaves, richly covered with large, feathery panicles of tiny blossoms, give it an appearance not unlike Scotch heather, and make a mountainside dainty and beautiful.

The California buckeye (_Aesculus Californica_, Nutt.) is also found, especially upon stream banks or on the moist slopes of the canyons. Its light gray limbs, broad leaves, and long, white flower-spikes make it an attractive shrub or tree (for it often reaches forty feet in height), and when the leaves drop, as they do early, the skeleton presents a beautiful and delicate network against the deep azure of the sky.

Another feature of the chaparral is the scrub oak. In 1913 the bushes were almost free from acorns. They generally appear only every other year, and when they do bear the crop is a wonderfully numerous one.

A vast amount of wild lilac (_Ceanothus Velutinus_) is found on all the slopes. It generally blooms in June and then the hillsides are one fragrant and glowing ma.s.s of vivid white tinged with the creamy hue that adds so much charm to the flowers.

The year 1913, however, was a peculiar year, throughout, for plant life. In the middle of September in Page's Meadows a large patch of ceanothus was in full bloom, either revealing a remarkably late flowering, or a second effort at beautification.

Another ceanothus, commonly called mountain birch, is often found.

When in abundance and in full flower it makes a mountain side appear as if covered with drifted snow.

Willows abound in the canyons and on the mountains of the Tahoe region, and they are an invariable sign of the near presence of water.

There is scarcely a canyon where alders, cottonwoods and quaking aspens may not be found. In 1913 either the lack of water, some adverse climatic condition, or some fungus blight caused the aspen leaves to blotch and fall from the trees as early as the beginning of September. As a rule they remain until late in October, changing to autumnal tints of every richness and hue and reminding one of the glorious hues of the eastern maples when touched by the first frosts of winter.

No one used to exploring dry and desert regions, such as the Colorado and Mohave Deserts of Southern California, the Grand Canyon region, the Navajo Reservation, etc., in Arizona and New Mexico, the constant presence of water in the Tahoe region is a perpetual delight. Daily in my trips here I have wondered at the absence of my canteen and sometimes in moments of forgetfulness I would reach for it, and be almost paralyzed with horror not to find it in its accustomed place.

But the never-ending joy of feeling that one could start out for a day's trip, or a camping-out expedition of a week or a month and never give the subject of water a moment's thought, can only be appreciated by those who are direfully familiar with the dependence placed upon the canteen in less favored regions.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

HOW TO DISTINGUISH THE TREES OF THE TAHOE REGION

By "trees" in this chapter I mean only the evergreen trees--the pines, firs, spruces, hemlocks, cedars, junipers and tamaracks. Many visitors like to know at least enough when they are looking at a tree, to tell which of the above species it belongs to. All I aim to do here is to seek to make clear the distinguishing features of the various trees, and to give some of the more readily discernible signs of the different varieties of the same species found in the region.

It must not be forgotten that tree growth is largely dependent upon soil conditions. The soil of the Tahoe region is chiefly glacial detritus.

On the slopes and summits of the ridges it is sandy, gravelly, and liberally strewn with ma.s.ses of drift bowlders. The flats largely formed of silting while they still const.i.tuted beds of lakes, have a deep soil of fine sand and mold resting on coa.r.s.e gravel and bowlder drift. Ridges composed of brecciated lavas, which crumble easily under the influence of atmospheric agencies, are covered with soil two or three feet, or even more, in depth, where gentle slopes or broad saddles have favored deposition and prevented washing. The granite areas of the main range and elsewhere have a very thin soil. The flats at the entrance of small streams into Lake Tahoe are covered with deep soil, owing to deposition of vegetable matter brought from the slopes adjacent to their channels. As a whole, the soil of the region is of sufficient fertility to support a heavy forest growth, its depth depends wholly on local circ.u.mstances favoring washing and removal of the soil elements as fast as formed, or holding them in place and compelling acc.u.mulations.[1]

Coniferous species of trees const.i.tute fully ninety-five per cent.

of the arborescent growth in the region. The remaining five per cent. consists mostly of different species of oak, ash, maple, mountain-mahogany, aspen, cottonwood, California buckeye, western red-bud, arborescent willows, alders, etc.

Of the conifers the species are as follows: yellow pine, _pinus ponderosa_; Jeffrey pine, _pinus jeffreyi_; sugar pine, _pinus lambertiana_; lodge-pole pine, _pinus murrayana_; white pine, _pinus monticola_; digger pine, _pinus sabiniana_; white-bark pine, _pinus albicaulis_; red fir, _pseudotsuga taxifolia_; white fir, _abies concolor_; Shasta fir, _abies magnifica_; patton hemlock or alpine spruce, _tsuga pattoniana_; incense cedar, _libocedrus decurrens_; western juniper, _juniperus occidentalis_; yew, _taxus brevifolia_.

[Footnote 1: John B. Leiberg, in _Forest Conditions in the Northern Sierra Nevada_.]

The range and chief characteristic of these trees, generally speaking, are as follows:

_Digger Pine_. This is seldom found in the Tahoe region, except in the lower reaches of the canyons on the west side of the range. It is sometimes known as the Nut Pine, for it bears a nut of which the natives are very fond. It has two cone forms, one in which the spurs point straight down, the other in which they are more or less curved at the tip. They grow to a height of forty to fifty and occasionally ninety feet high; with open crown and thin gray foliage.

_Western Juniper_. This is a typical tree of the arid regions east of the Sierra, yet it is to be found scattered throughout the Tahoe country, generally at an elevation between five thousand and eight thousand feet. It ranges in height from ten to twenty-five or even sixty-five feet. Its dull red bark, which shreds or flakes easily, its berries, which begin a green color, shade through to gray, and when ripe are a rich purple, make it readily discernible.

It is a characteristic feature of the scenery at timber line in many Tahoe landscapes.

With the crowns beaten by storms into irregular shapes, often dead on one side but flourishing on the other, the tops usually dismantled and the trunks excessively thickened at base, such figures, whether erect, half overthrown or wholly crouching, are the most picturesque of mountain trees and are frequently of very great age.--_Jepson_.

_Yew_. This is not often found and then only in the west canyons above the main range. It is a small and insignificant tree, rarely exceeding forty feet in height. It has a thin red-brown smooth bark which becomes shreddy as it flakes off in thin and rather small pieces. The seeds are borne on the under side of the sprays and when mature set in a fleshy scarlet cup, the whole looking like a brilliantly colored berry five or six inches long. They ripen in July or August.

_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 sh.o.r.es 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.

_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 cl.u.s.ters 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 spa.r.s.e 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_.