On this slope, conifers with needlelike or tightly scaled leaves dominate.

Branchlets with prominent scars form scale leaves.

The phylloclades are borne spirally on green stems; each phylloclade has a scale leaf at its base.

The scale leaves are arranged in alternating decussate pairs in four rows along the twigs.

From between the layers of scale leaves emerge reddish pedicels each bearing a petite, hanging, down-facing, bell-shaped flower.

Needles, the adult leaves, which are green (photosynthetic), bundled in clusters (fascicles) of 1-6, commonly 2-5, needles together, each fascicle produced from a small bud on a dwarf shoot in the axil of a scale leaf.