Silver Fir

Silver fir, the perfect little Christmas tree

"The principal tree for the first mile or two from camp is the magnificent silver fir, which reaches perfection here both in size and form of individual trees, and in the mode of grouping in groves with open spaces between. So trim and tasteful are these silvery, spiry groves one would fancy they must have been placed in position by some master landscape gardener, their regularity seeming almost conventional. But Nature is the only gardener able to do work so fine. A few noble specimens two hundred feet high occupy central positions in the groups with younger trees around them; and outside of these another circle of yet smaller ones, the whole arranged like tastefully symmetrical bouquets, every tree fitting nicely the place assigned to it as if made especially for it; small roses and eriogonums are usually found blooming on the open spaces about the groves, forming charming pleasure grounds. Higher, the firs gradually become smaller and less perfect, many showing double summits, indicating storm stress. Still, where good moraine soil is found, even on the rim of the lake-basin, specimens one hundred and fifty feet in height and five feet in diameter occur nearly nine thousand feet above the sea. The saplings, I find, are mostly bent with the crushing weight of the winter snow, which at this elevation must be at least eight or ten feet deep, judging by marks on the trees; and this depth of compacted snow is heavy enough to bend and bury young trees twenty or thirty feet in height and hold them down for four or five months. Some are broken; the others spring up when the snow melts and at length attain a size that enables them to withstand the snow pressure. Yet even in trees five feet thick the traces of this early discipline are still plainly to be seen in their curved insteps, and frequently in old dried saplings protruding from the trunk, partially overgrown by the new axis developed from a branch below the break. Yet through all this stress the forest is maintained in marvelous beauty." John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

Although the silver, white, and red firs are all different types of trees, their names are often used interchangeably. For example, John Muir calls the silver fir both Abies concolor and Abies magnifica, while biologists today dub the concolor "white fir" and the magnifica "red fir." The silver fir is more commonly known as the Abies Amabalis, though Muir never mentions this Latin name. I had a very difficult time distinguishing between the three and eventually gave up and decided to refer to them all as silver firs, as does Mr. Muir.

"The silver firs (Abies concolor and Abies magnifica) are exceedingly beautiful, especially the magnifica, which becomes more abundant the higher we go. It is of great size, one of the most notable in every way of the giant conifers of the Sierra. I saw specimens that measured seven feet in diameter and over two hundred feet in height, while the average size for what might be called full-grown mature trees can hardly be less than one hundred and eighty or two hundred feet high and five or six feet in diameter; and with these noble dimensions there is a symmetry and perfection of finish not to be seen in any other tree, hereabout at least. The branches are whorled in fives mostly, and stand out from the tall, straight, exquisitely tapered bole in level collars, each branch regularly pinnated like the fronds of ferns, and densely clad with leaves all around the branchlets, thus giving them a singularly rich and sumptuous appearance. The extreme top of the tree is a thick blunt shoot pointing straight to the zenith like an admonishing finger. The cones stand erect like casks on the upper branches. They are about six inches long, three in diameter, blunt, velvety, and cylindrical in form, and very rich and precious looking. The seeds are about three quarters of an inch long, dark reddish brown with brilliant iridescent purple wings, and when ripe, the cone falls to pieces, and the seeds thus set free at a height of one hundred and fifty or two hundred feet have a good send off and may fly considerable distances in a good breeze; and it is when a good breeze is blowing that most of them are shaken free to fly...The other species, Abies concolor, attains nearly as great a height and thickness as the magnifica, but the branches do not form such regular whorls, nor are they so exactly pinnated or richly leaf-clad. Instead of growing all around the branchlets, the leaves are mostly arranged in two flat horizontal rows. The cones and seeds are like those of the magnifica in form but less than half as large. The bark of the magnifica is reddish purple and closely furrowed, that of the concolor gray and widely furrowed. A noble pair."

Young silver firs gathered round a lodgepole pine

It also turns out that silver firs make for quite cozy sleeping material:

"Have got my bed made in our new camp,--plushy, sumptuous, and deliciously fragrant, most of it magnifica fir plumes, of course, with a variety of sweet flowers in the pillow."

Lastly, I hope you enjoy these poetic expressions with a bit of silver fir interspersed throughout...

"The pale rose and purple sky changing softly to daffodil yellow and white, sunbeams pouring through the passes between the peaks and over the Yosemite domes, making their edges burn; the silver firs in the middle ground catching the glow on their spiry tops, and our camp grove fills and thrills with the glorious light. Everything awakening alert and joyful; the birds begin to stir and innumerable insect people. Deer quietly withdraw into leafy hiding-places in the chaparral; the dew vanishes, flowers spread their petals, every pulse beats high, every life cell rejoices, the very rocks seem to thrill with life. The whole landscape glows like a human face in a glory of enthusiasm, and the blue sky, pale around the horizon, bends peacefully down over all like one vast flower...

Probably more free sunshine falls on this majestic range than on any other in the world I've ever seen or heard of. It has the brightest weather, brightest glacier-polished rocks, the greatest abundance of irised spray from its glorious waterfalls, the brightest forests of silver firs and silver pines, more star-shine, moonshine, and perhaps more crystal-shine than any other mountain chain, and its countless mirror lakes, having more light poured into them, glow and spangle most. And how glorious the shining after the short summer showers and after frosty nights when the morning sunbeams are pouring through the crystals on the grass and pine needles, and how ineffably spiritually fine is the morning-glow on the mountain-tops and the alpenglow of evening. Well may the Sierra be named, not the Snowy Range, but the Range of Light."

Black-Tailed Deer

"In the thick woods between camp and the river, among tall grass and fallen pines, I discovered a baby fawn. At first it seemed inclined to come to me; but when I tried to catch it, and got within a rod or two, it turned and walked softly away, choosing its steps like a cautious, stealthy, hunting cat. Then, as if suddenly called or alarmed, it began to buck and run like a grown deer, jumping high above the fallen trunks, and was soon out of sight. Possibly its mother may have called it, but I did not hear her. I don't think fawns ever leave the home thicket or follow their mothers until they are called or frightened." John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

Though I didn't try my hand at snatching up the fawn, I did get close enough to snap a decent picture. Of course, getting within this proximity is probably a million times easier to do now than it was for John Muir, as the deer in Yosemite Valley (where this photo was taken) are that much more accustomed to human presence and free snacks these days...

It's taken some self-persuasion for me to think this way, but this animal's occasional interaction with humans does not make the black-tailed deer any less arresting or thought-provoking. For some of us, it takes discipline to stop viewing wild yet available animals as being boring or unfit for observation. For me that was always critters like blue jays, ground squirrels, and seagulls; I used to ignore them, but I'm just now learning to see all of them, along with black-tailed deer and humans ourselves, as an equally intriguing and integral facet of wilderness as are mountain lions and humpback whales. And it's precisely this kind of poetic prose from John Muir that conveys such a regard and wonder for all creatures...

"A fine specimen of the black-tailed deer went bounding past camp this morning. A buck with wide spread of antlers, showing admirable vigor and grace. Wonderful the beauty, strength, and graceful movements of animals in wildernesses, cared for by Nature only, when our experience with domestic animals would lead us to fear that all the so-called neglected wild beasts would degenerate. Yet the upshot of Nature's method of breeding and teaching seems to lead to excellence of every sort. Deer, like all wild animals, are as clean as plants. The beauties of their gestures and attitudes, alert or in repose, surprise yet more than their bounding exuberant strength. Every movement and posture is graceful, the very poetry of manners and motion. Mother Nature is too often spoken of as in reality no mother at all. Yet how wisely, sternly, tenderly she loves and looks after her children in all sorts of weather and wildernesses. The more I see of deer the more I admire them as mountaineers. They make their way into the heart of the roughest solitudes with smooth reserve of strength, through dense belts of brush and forest encumbered with fallen trees and boulder piles, across cañons, roaring streams, and snow-fields, ever showing forth beauty and courage. Over nearly all the continent the deer find homes. In the Florida savannas and hummocks, in the Canada woods, in the far north, roaming over mossy tundras, swimming lakes and rivers and arms of the sea from island to island washed with waves, or climbing rocky mountains, everywhere healthy and able, adding beauty to every landscape,--a truly admirable creature and great credit to Nature." 

Lodgepole Pine (Pinus Contorta)

The pinus contorta is an appropriate title if only because of the confusion it causes for those trying to identify it. Even some of Yosemite's most knowledgeable explorers mistook it for a different type of tree. Yet it is the most prolific tree in the Sierra, found in many different levels of altitude. John Muir described its abudance:

"I find the two-leaved pine (Pinus contorta, var. Murrayana) forms the bulk of the forest up to an elevation of ten thousand feet or more--the highest timber-belt of the Sierra. I saw a specimen nearly five feet in diameter growing on deep, well-watered soil at an elevation of about nine thousand feet... a brave, hardy mountaineer pine, growing cheerily on rough beds of avalanche boulders and joints of rock pavements, as well as in fertile hollows, standing up to the waist in snow every winter for centuries, facing a thousand storms and blooming every year in colors as bright as those worn by the sun-drenched trees of the tropics."

The lodgepole pine grows from 130 to 160 feet on average, with needles and cones of about 1.5 to 3 inches in length. It generally grows a straight trunk and so was used by Native Americans for teepee lodges, hence the name lodgepole pine. The exception to its perfectly vertical nature occurs when the snow puts so much pressure on a weak sapling that it becomes permanently bent:

It is often mistaken for the Tamarack pine because of its two-needle fascicles. These are the only trees in the Sierra with needles in groups of two as opposed to three or four. John Muir commented on the misleading name of Tamarack Flat in Yosemite: 

"The flat is named after the two-leaved pine (Pinus contorta, var. Murrayana), common here, especially around the cool margin of the meadow. On rocky ground it is a rough, thickset tree, about forty to sixty feet high and one to three feet in diameter, bark thin and gummy, branches rather naked, tassels, leaves, and cones small. But in damp, rich soil it grows close and slender, and reaches a height at times of nearly a hundred feet. Specimens only six inches in diameter at the ground are often fifty or sixty feet in height, as slender and sharp in outline as arrows, like the true tamarack (larch) of the Eastern States; hence the name, though it is a pine." 

If only we could communicate with these pines, we could gain a breadth of knowledge into every walk of life and each varied landscape of the vast Sierra mountain range. In the Mammoth Lakes area, where we stayed, the lodgepole pine can be found residing lakeside, in a meadow, rising up between granite boulders, by a stream, and along mountain slopes. It stands as a reminder to those who take interest in identifying the life around them, that it's worth doing so just to have someone familiar greet you every place you visit.