60 



PINACEAE 



17. Pinus muricata D. Don. 



Prickle-cone or Bishop's Pine. 



Fig. 128. 



Pinus muricata D. Don, Trans. Linn. Soc. 17: 441. 1837. 

 Pinus edgariana Hartw. Journ. Hort. Soc. Lond. 3: 217. 1848. 



A small tree 12-25 m. high with a trunk 3-10 dm. 

 in diameter and a round-topped, compact crown ; 

 bark of old trunks 10-15 cm. thick, deeply divided into 

 narrow rounded ridges. Leaves in twos, dark yellow- 

 green, stout, stiff, in dense tufts at the ends of the 

 branches, persisting 2 or 3 years ; staminate flowers, 

 8 mm. long; cones lateral, usually clustered in whorls, 

 sessile, deflexed, 5-7 cm. long, light chestnut brown, 

 unsymmetrical by the much enlarged outer scales 

 which are prolonged into prominent knobs armed 

 with a stout elongated spine, remaining closed for 

 many years, and rarely if ever falling from live 

 trees ; seeds 6 mm. long, subtriangular with a thin 

 roughened black shell ; wings narrow, nearly 25 mm. 

 long. 



A maritime species of the Transition and Upper Sonoran Zones; most abundant and best developed 

 along the coast from Inglenook, Mendocino County, to Point Reyes, California, forming an almost con- 

 tinuous belt. Southward, occurring in small, widely separated groves. Point Pinos Kidge near Monterey, 

 Pecho Mountains, San Luis Obispo County, and Santa Cruz Island; reappearing again in a modified form 

 (var. anthonyi Lemmon) between Ensenada and San Quentin, Lower California, and on Cedros Island. 

 Wood light and soft, occasionally cut for lumber. Type locality: near San Luis Obispo, California, "at an 

 elevation of 3000 feet." 



2. LARIX [Tourn.] Adans. Fam. PI. 2: 480. 1763. 



Tall, pyramidal trees, with slender, remote, horizontal or pendulous branches, thick 

 furrowed or scaly bark and heavy wood. Branchlets slender and often pendulous, covered 

 with short, stout, spur-like lateral twigs. Buds small, nearly globose, covered with broad 

 scales. Leaves deciduous, awl-shaped, triangular or sometimes 4-sided, spirally arranged 

 and remote on leading shoots, densely crowded on the lateral spur-like twigs. Flowers 

 solitary and terminal, the staminate appearing before the leaves, pale yellow, globose to 

 oblong, sessile or stalked, the pistillate appearing with the leaves, their scales orbicular, 

 subtended by longer mucronate bracts. Fruit a woody cone with slightly thickened con- 

 cave scales, shorter or longer than the bracts. Seeds nearly triangular, rounded on the 

 sides, crustaceous and light brown, shorter than the wings; cotyledons 6. [Name ancient, 

 probably Celtic] 



Ten species confined to the subarctic and cooler parts of the north temperate zone. Besides the follow- 

 ing there are two other species in North America, Larix alaskensis Wight in Alaska, and Larix laricina 

 (Du Roi) Koch, extending from the northern Atlantic coast to the Northwest Territory. Type species, 

 Larix larix (L.) Karst. 



Leaves triangular; young twigs pubescent, becoming smooth. 1. L. occidentalis. 



Leaves 4-sided; twigs tomentose. 2. L. lyallii. 



1. Larix occidentalis Nutt. Western Larch or Tamarack. Fig. 129. 



Larix occidentals Nutt. N. Am. Sylva 3: 143. pi. 120. 1849. 

 Pinus nuttallii Pari. DC. Prod. 16=: 412. 1868. 



Attaining a maximum height of 80 m. and a 

 diameter of 2-2.5 m., with a short, narrow, 

 open crown and short branches with a sparse 

 foliage, or sometimes with a large crown and 

 long, drooping branches ; branchlets pubescent, 

 usually soon glabrous ; bark dark colored, 

 divided into large irregularly scaly plates at the 

 base of old trunks, 10-15 cm. thick. Leaves 

 25-50 mm. long, flatly triangular, distinctly 

 keeled on tlie inner surface, 14-30 in a cluster ; 

 cones oblong, 25-35 mm. long, short-stalked ; 

 scales many, nearly 'utire, sometimes with 

 reflexed margins when open, nearly orbicular, 

 little broader than long; bracts much longer 

 than the scales, abruptly contracted into the 

 mucronate tip ; seeds 6 mm. long, pale brown. 



Mountain slopes, Canadian Zone; British Columbia 

 and Montana, southward to the Blue Mountains and 

 the Cascade Mountains, mainly on the eastern slope as 

 far south as Sciuaw Creek. Oregon. Wood heavy, hard 

 and strong, reddish with nearly white sapwood, very durable in soil and largely used for ties, poles anil 

 posts. Type locality: "in the coves of the Rocky Mountains on the western slope toward the Oregon." 



