236 SYLVA AMERICANA. 



three"are found together on the shoots of the same season, but 

 never upon the older branches. The cones are oval, armed 

 with fine spines, and smaller than those of any other American 

 pine, since they scarcely exceed an inch and a half in length 

 upon old trees. The seeds are cast the first year. 



The concentric circles of the wood are six times as numerous 

 in a given space as those of the pitch and loblolly pines. In 

 trunks fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter, there are only two 

 inches, or two and a half, of sap, and still less in such as exceed 

 this size. The heart is fine-grained and moderately resinous, 

 which renders it compact without great weight. Long experience 

 has proved its excellence and durability. It is employed for 

 floors of houses, for the casings of doors and wainscots and for 

 window sashes. Immense quantities are used in the dockyards 

 of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc., for the decks, masts, 

 yards, beams and cabins of vessels, and it is considered as next 

 in durability to the long-leaved pine. The wood from New 

 Jersey and Maryland is fine-grained, more compact, and stronger 

 than that from the river Delaware, which grows upon richer lands. 



Table Mountain Pine. Pinus pungens. 



Table Mountain, in North Carolina, one of the highest 

 points of the Alleghanies, at the distance of nearly 300 miles 

 from the sea, has given its name to this species of pine, which 

 covers it almost exclusively, though it is rare on the neighboring 

 summits. Nor is it found in any other part of the United States. 



The Table Mountain pine is 40 or 50 feet in height with a 

 proportional diameter. The buds are resinous, and the leaves, 

 which grow in pairs, are thick, stiff and about two inches and a 

 half in length. The cones are about three inches long and two 

 inches in diameter at the base, of a regular form and a light 

 yellow color : they are sessile, and often united to the number 

 of four. Each scale is armed with a strong, ligneous spine, two 

 lines in length, widened at the base, and bent towards the summit 

 of the cone. 



