The plumes are exceedingly beautiful; no waving fern-frond in shady dell is more unreservedly beautiful in form and texture, or half so inspiring in color and spicy fragrance.

In its prime, the whole tree is thatched with them, so that they shed off rain and snow like a roof, making fine mansions for storm-bound birds and mountaineers.

But if you would see the _Libocedrus_ in all its glory, you must go to the woods in winter.

Then it is laden with myriads of four-sided staminate cones about the size of wheat grains,--winter wheat,--producing a golden tinge, and forming a noble illustration of Nature's immortal vigor and virility.

The fertile cones are about three fourths of an inch long, borne on the outside of the plumy branchlets, where they serve to enrich still more the surpassing beauty of this grand winter-blooming goldenrod.
[Illustration: INCENSE CEDAR IN ITS PRIME.] WHITE SILVER FIR (_Abies concolor_) [Illustration: FOREST OF GRAND SILVER FIRS.