The deer love to lie down beneath its spreading branches; bright streams from the snow that is always near ripple through its groves, and bryanthus spreads precious carpets in its shade.

But the best words only hint its charms.

Come to the mountains and see.
DWARF PINE (_Pinus albicaulis_) This species forms the extreme edge of the timber line throughout nearly the whole extent of the range on both flanks.

It is first met growing in company with _Pinus contorta_, var.

_Murrayana_, on the upper margin of the belt, as an erect tree from fifteen to thirty feet high and from one to two feet in thickness; thence it goes straggling up the flanks of the summit peaks, upon moraines or crumbling ledges, wherever it can obtain a foothold, to an elevation of from 10,000 to 12,000 feet, where it dwarfs to a mass of crumpled, prostrate branches, covered with slender, upright shoots, each tipped with a short, close-packed tassel of leaves.
The bark is smooth and purplish, in some places almost white.