klein THE PINE 285 



when all the landscape is glowing in deep, calm enthusiasm— 

 for this you must love and live with them, as free from schemes 

 and cares and time as the trees themselves." 



The beautiful Pines have something, have everything to teach 

 us, especially at this time of year. So away to the Pines we shall 

 go (for a cat may look at a king), eyes and ears alert. But let us 

 equip ourselves on our way with some interesting facts about the 

 Pines which they in their modesty may refuse to reveal. 



The pines are evergreens, or Conifers. The distinguishing 

 feature of this great tree group is the cone-bearing habit. The 

 overlapping scales of the cone are attached to a central stem, 

 and each scale bears one or more naked ovules when the time of 

 flowering comes. A little detail about the cone and the pistil of 

 the evergreens, is very essential here. 



The Pine family and its relatives are characterized by the 

 simplest, yet most peculiar kind of pistil. This pistil is gym- 

 nospermous, or naked-seeded. The counterpart of the ordinary 

 pistil is angiospermous, meaning that the seeds are borne in a 

 sac or closed vessel. Accordingly the pollen can act upon the 

 contained ovules only indirectly, thru the stigma. 



While the ordinary simple pistil is conceived by the botanist 

 to be a leaf rolled together into a closed pod, those of the Pine, 

 Larch, Cedar and Arbor Vitae are open leaves, in the form of 

 scales, each bearing two or more ovules on the inner face, next 

 the base. At the time of blossoming, these pistil-leaves of the 

 young cone diverge, and the pollen so abundantly shed from the 

 staminate blossoms, falls directly upon the exposed ovules. 

 Afterwards the scales close over each other until the seeds are 

 ripe. As the pollen acts directly on the ovules, such pistil (or 

 organ acting as pistil) has no stigma. When ripe and dry, the 

 scales turn back or diverge, and in the Pine the seed peels off and 

 falls, generally carrying with it a wing, a part of the lining of the 

 scale, which facilitates the dispersion of the seeds by the wind. 

 The fertile scales are favorably situated near the middle of the 

 cone. Here the best seeds are found. The terminal scales 

 crowd at both ends of the cone, and their seeds usually fail utterly 

 or are stunted in development. 



So much for the family. It is obvious that if the whole is in- 

 teresting, its aggregate parts must be. On the genus Pinus let us 

 now center our attention. 



