14 BULLETIN UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA 



Pinus contorta var. Murrayana (Murr.) Eng. Bot. Cal. 2 126 (1880), Pinus 

 Murrayana iMurr. Bot. Exp. Oregon 740 t. 3. f. 2. (1860). Lotlgepole Pine. 

 This is a strict and slender tree with tapering trunk, growing in dense 

 thickets and singly all over the mountains to timber line in dry places, 

 horizontal, slender, whorled branches. Cones clustered, about 2 inches long, 

 with strong knobs and slender prickles. The bark is thin and scaly and 

 light-brown, and rough even to the twigs, not conspicuously resinous. 

 Leaves 2 to 3 inches long. Outline of tree is lanceolate with an acuminate 

 tip. This is the most common evergreen in the region taking it as a whole. 

 There are few places where it has reached the dimensions of a lumber 

 tree because of the frequent fires, but back of Tellow Bay it forms immense 

 thickets over square miles of land, growing so thickly that it is difficult to 

 force one's way through it afoot. It is everywhere on the slopes of Mc- 

 Donald peak, is very abundant on the uplands back of Bigfork going up to 

 the limit of the subalpine at 5500 feet. It is occasionally 150 feet 

 high. The wood is tough, hard, compact and reddish, and when large 

 enough makes fine lumber. It is much used for poles for fencing, for posts 

 and the like. Everj'where to the top of the mountains in the Bitter Root 

 valley. Occasional on both slopes in the Sperry Glacier region. 



Pinus ponderosa var. scopulorum Eng. Bot. Cal. 2 126 (1880). Yellow 

 Pine. This is a magnificent tree 100 to 150 feet high, with straight trunk 

 tapering but little, the lower branches falling early and only here and tnere 

 a great branch straggling off, trunk often 100 feet long without a branch 

 and 2 to 6 feet in diameter, with brick-colored, thick, flaky bark cracking 

 up into great Hat areas 2 to 4 inches wide and a foot or more long. The 

 very slender leaves are about 6 inches long in swalbs at the ends of the 

 twigs. The cones before opening are oval-olong, 3 to 4 inches long, but on 

 opening are about oval-ovate, dark colored. Prickles stout and incurved. 

 Wood rather yellowish, compact, tough, heavy. Leaves often in twos. The 

 cones and leaves vary greatly. This is the great lumber tree of the region. 

 It albounds on the mainland on tablelands and slopes to the subalpine at 

 .5500 feet alt. in dry places and on all the shores and islands of the 

 lake. It never grows in thickets, even the seedlings do not grow close 

 together as with the lodge-pole pine. Bigfork, Umbach. Everywhere to the 

 top of the mountains in the Bitter Root valley. 



Pinus albicaulis Eng. Trans St. Louis Acad. 2 209 (1868). White-barked 

 Pine. Bastard Alpine Pine. This grows at high elevations at and near tim- 

 berline on all the mountains on the edges of rocky meadows and slopes 

 and ridges. It is a scraggly tree, generally with the trunk dividing into 

 two or more great limbs which are tortuous or curved and sparingly 

 branched with short and thick twigs and smaller branches whose swollen 

 bark is full of pitch. The leaves form narrow swabs at the ends. The 

 nearly (black cones are single to clustered near the ends, and are heavy 

 but small. The main trunk is a foot or two thick with rather thin bark 

 cracking into oblong areas flat on the toip much like the oak. The wood 

 is soft and white and full of resin and very brittle, of little value save 

 for fuel. Trees rarely over 50 feet high growing along with the alpine 

 fir and red fir. Common at timber line on both slopes in the Sperry Glacier 

 region. 



Pinus flexilis James Long's Exp. 2 35 (1823). Bastard Pine. This is 

 not yet known nearer than Deer Lodge valley. Its cones are narrow and 

 over twice as long as in albicaulis and the tree grows in the Middle Tem- 

 perate life zone mostly (but in other respects much resemble it. 



Pinus monticola Douglas in Lamb. Desc. Pin. Ed 2, 3 27 t. 87 (1837). 

 WTiite Pine. This is the most magnificent pine of them all. It often 

 grows to 200 feet high, with a straight symmetrical and clean trunk, with 

 thin (except at base) and oak-like bark. It is often 6 feet in diameter but 

 is still a slender tree. It has an airy apearance because of the rather long 

 internodes and the almost thread-like and glaucous leaves 2 inches long. 



