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Pinus pungens has a varying appearance depending on density 
of growth. Where the trees grow thickly they are tall, straight, 
and slender, having but few living branches, except near the top. 
Quite the contrary when they grow far apart. The trees then 
present a straggling look, drooping branches loaded with cones, 
running out 15 feet or more, the extremities of the lower ones 
often touching the ground. 
The cones are quite distinctive. They are ovate-conical, fas- 
cicled around the branches in clusters of three to seven, 3% to 4 
inches long, armed with stout spines, which are, from the middle 
of the cone upward, zxcurved, and from the middle downward, 
recurved. The leaves are stout, 2 to 3 inches long, sometimes | 
shorter, with short sheaths on mature foliage. The sheaths, how- 
ever, on young leaves about ¥% inch long. G. N. BEST. 
ROSEMONT, N. J., June 14th, 1886. 
Notes on Starch in the Chestnut Wood. 
I wish to add a note to my communication of last month in 
regard to the starch grains in chestnut wood. 
June 1st I cut a branch from a tree on the Boston and Albany 
Railroad, near the Massachusetts and New York State line, at an 
elevation of 950 feet above the sea. The aments of the chestnut 
trees then were just appearing; the leaves gave to the trees a dense 
foliage. 
Only a few of the upright starch-carrying cells in the fifth and 
sixth rings from the bark still contained starch grains. The med- 
ullary rays in the alburnum and in the bark did not give a trace, 
nor were any found in any of the cells of the bark. In chestnut 
trees at less elevations probably this change had taken place be- 
fore this date, as the aments on the trees in the eastern portion of 
the State were much further advanced. The only timber of chest- 
nut generally seen now in Massachusetts is of second growth, and 
along the line of the railroad mentioned I did not see any above 
1,000 feet of elevation. 
So little is known in regard to the periods when different trees 
store starch and then transform it, that I trust many other observers 
in different sections of the country will give the result of investi- 
gations in this respect. It is a matter not only of great scientific 
