THE PINES. 47 



FIRST GENERAL DIVISION. 



DICOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS. 



CHAPTER I. PLANTS WITH NAKED SEEDS. 



FAMILY I. THE PINE FAMILY. CONIFERS. 



The pines, firs, junipers, cypresses, spruces, larches, hemlock, 

 and yews, with some foreign trees, form a very distinct and 

 strikingly natural group. The name evergreen, by which they 

 are commonly known, is liable to the exception that one of the 

 genera found in our climate, the larch, loses its leaves in winter. 

 But it is so distinguishing a characteristic of the rest, that it is 

 likely to be long retained. This family has claims to our par- 

 ticular attention, from the importance of its products in naval, 

 and especially in civil and domestic architecture, in many of 

 the other arts, and, in some instances, in medicine. Some of 

 the species, in this country, are of more rapid growth, attain 

 to a larger size, and rise to a loftier height than any other trees 

 known. The white pine is much the tallest of our native trees. 

 Some are still found in New England reaching nearly to 200 

 feet ; and it is not many years since pines were standing in the 

 eastern part of New York, which measured 240 feet. Lam- 

 bert's Pine, on the Northwest coast, is found growing to the 

 height of 230 feet,* and Douglas's Pine, in the same region, 

 the loftiest tree known, has been said to exceed 300 feet. 



* Mr. Douglas gives the following description of one: — "One specimen, which 

 had been blown down by the wind, — and this was certainly not the largest which I 

 saw, — was of the following dimensions. Its entire length was 215 feet; its cir- 

 cumference, three feet from the ground, was fifty-seven feet nine inches ; and at 

 one hundred and thirty-four feet from the ground, seventeen feet five inches." 

 Linnean Transactions, 16, p. 500. 



The resin of this pine is used by the natives of the Northwest Coast as sugar ; 

 and the seeds are eaten, or roasted pounded into cakes, as part of their winter store. 

 Lambert's Genus Pinus, p. 58. 



