290 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



"Then note, farther, their perfectness. The pine stands com- 

 pact, like one of its own cones, slightly curved on its sides, and, 

 instead of being wild in its expression, forms the softest of all 

 forest scenery. For other trees show their trunks and twisting 

 boughs; but the pine, growing either in luxubriant mass or in 

 happy isolation, allows no bough to be seen. Lowland forests 

 arch overhead and checker the ground with darkness; but the 

 pine, growing in scattered groups, leaves the glades between 

 emerald bright. Its gloom is all its own; narrowing to the sky, 

 it lets the sunshine strike down to the den. 



"And then I want you to notice in the pine its exquisite fineness. 

 Other trees rise against the sky in dots and knots, but this in 

 fringes. 



"You never see the edges of it, so subtle are they; and for this 

 reason it alone of trees, so far as I know, is capable of the fiery 

 changes noticed by Shakespeare. 



"When the sun rises behind a ridge crested with pine, pro- 

 vided the ridge be at a distance of about two miles, and seen clear, 

 all the trees for about three or four degrees on each side of the sun 

 become trees of light, seen in clear flame against the darker sky, 

 and dazzling as the sun itself. 



"I thought at first this was owing to the actual lustre of the 

 leaves; but I believe now it is caused by the cloud dew upon 

 them, every minutest leaf carrying its diamond. It seems as if 

 these trees, living always among the clouds had caught part of 

 their glory from them." 



The Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida, Mill.) 



The pitch pine carries picturesqueness to extremes, and becomes 

 in old age grotesque, even absolutely ugly. It has the look of a 

 tree that has been hounded by untoward circumstances. In 

 youth the tree has a rounded symmetrical head, formed of suc- 

 cessive whorls of branches. In its subsequent struggles sym- 

 metry is lost, and the contorted limbs, tufted with scant sickly- 

 looking foliage, and studded with the squat, black, prickly cones of 

 many years, reach ou£ with an expression of mute appeal that 

 tempts one to cut the tree down and end its sufferings. If it is 

 cut, however, it sends up suckers from the roots, a strange habit 

 among the pines; and its winged seeds spread the species over 

 barren and shifting sand dunes, and otherwise hopelessly treeless 



