In its youth up to the age of seventy or eighty years, none of its companions forms so strictly tapered a cone from top to bottom.

As it becomes older it oftentimes grows strikingly irregular and picturesque.

Large branches push out at right angles to the trunk, forming stubborn elbows and shoot up parallel with the axis.

Very old trees are usually dead at the top.

The flat fragrant plumes are exceedingly beautiful: no waving fern-frond is finer in form and texture.