Only a few trees of this species, as far as I have seen, have as yet gained a place in the Sierra woods.

It has evidently been derived from the coast range by way of the tangle of connecting mountains at the head of the Sacramento Valley.
In shady dells and on cool stream banks of the northern Sierra we also find the Yew (_Taxus brevifolia_).
The interesting Nutmeg Tree (_Torreya Californica_) is sparsely distributed along the western flank of the range at an elevation of about 4000 feet, mostly in gulches and canons.

It is a small, prickly leaved, glossy evergreen, like a conifer, from twenty to fifty feet high, and one to two feet in diameter.

The fruit resembles a green-gage plum, and contains one seed, about the size of an acorn, and like a nutmeg, hence the common name.

The wood is fine-grained and of a beautiful, creamy yellow color like box, sweet-scented when dry, though the green leaves emit a disagreeable odor.
_Betula occidentalis_, the only birch, is a small, slender tree restricted to the eastern flank of the range along stream-sides below the pine-belt, especially in Owen's Valley.
Alder, Maple, and Nuttall's Flowering Dogwood make beautiful bowers over swift, cool streams at an elevation of from 3000 to 5000 feet, mixed more or less with willows and cottonwood; and above these in lake basins the aspen forms fine ornamental groves, and lets its light shine gloriously in the autumn months.
The Chestnut Oak (_Quercus densiflora_) seems to have come from the coast range around the head of the Sacramento Valley, like the _Chamaecyparis_, but as it extends southward along the lower edge of the main pine-belt it grows smaller until it finally dwarfs to a mere chaparral bush.