68 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



pine. The young branches seem to have no true bark, but to 

 be covered by the decurrent foot of the shrivelled leaf, from 

 which grows the sheath of the bundles of leaves. The surface of 

 every part of the tree is thus more rough than that of any other 

 tree of the forest. But it is less liable to be covered by lichens.* 



The branches are in imperfect whorls of three or more. So 

 many of the branches perish, that this circumstance is often not 

 visible in a solitary tree, but, to one examining a large number, 

 it is immediately obvious. They usually tend upwards irreg- 

 ularly at a considerable angle, forming large deep masses of 

 foliage, and never, except in very old trees, have the horizontal 

 growth common to most other pines. As the trees usually grow 

 at some distance apart, on extremely poor soil, they are almost 

 uniformly much branched, and the branches are irregular, and 

 larger than in other trees of this family. The leaves are in 

 threes, with a callous point, flattish, rounded on the external 

 side and angled within, and from two to five or six inches long ; 

 arranged in spirals and forming a stiff brush at the ends of the 

 branches. The buds, which are long and slender, are covered 

 with resin; they are found only at the extremities, where a 

 single large bud is encircled by three or more smaller ones. 



The sterile flowers are in catkins, half an inch or more long, 

 in a few spirals around the base of the recent shoot, where they 

 take the place of bundles of leaves. The anthers have two 

 cells, from which is discharged a great quantity of sulphur- 

 colored pollen. The fertile flowers are in cones, which are 

 either solitary or two or more together, near the extremity of 

 the new shoot. At the period of flowering, in May or June, 

 they are one-third of an inch long, on a stout footstalk covered 

 with thin reddish scales. At this period both male and female 

 flowers have great beauty. At the end of one season, the cones 

 are not apparently changed in size. At the end of the second, 

 they are sometimes fully, sometimes half grown. When ma- 

 ture, which is usually at the end of the second autumn, although 

 sometimes not till the third, they are of a conical shape, from 



* A few Usneas and large Stictas, and occasionally the more vigorous Parmelias, 

 find place on the bark. 



