77 



NOTES ON WEST-AMERICAN CONIFERS.— VIII. 



By J. G. Lemmon. 



Pinus tenuis. 



Small, slender trees, rarely exceeding 60 ft. in height, with a 

 diameter of 2 feet; bark dark, quite thin, the outer, hardened 

 epidermis |— § inch thick, and coarsely checked ; cones very small, 

 declined, ovate, slightly oblique, |— l|r inch long, the scales on 

 the outer side and near the base more developed than the rest; 

 prickles minute, stiff and incurved; seeds ovate-acute, 1^—2^ 

 millimeters long, light yellow, mottled with brown on the upper 

 side, brown and longitudinally furrowed below; seed-wings semi- 

 elliptical, 8-10 millimeters long, including the clip holding the 

 seed, diaphanous; leaves in pairs 4-6 centimeters long, li-2 

 millimeters wide, obscurely serrulate near the apex; male flowers 

 small, numerous in a dense cluster. 



High plateaux and mountain-sides and along stream banks, of 

 northern regions from the interior of Alaska and British Columbia, 

 southward along the Rocky Mountains, through Montana and 

 Wyoming, thence westward through Idaho to the Blue Mountains 

 of northeastern Oregon. Muir, Gorman, Johnson, Piper, Hen- 

 derson, Smith, Langille, Lemmon, Lloyd and other collectors. 

 Distinguished as a slender tree with very small cones, inhabiting 

 a distinct northern region; usually crowded into dense groves; 

 the cones usually remaining for many years on the limbs, often 

 aggregated near the ends. Owing to the slender and limbless 

 character of this pine and its abundance in certain localities, it 

 is very serviceable in primitive house-building, fence-making, etc., 

 hence properly called "Lodge-pole Pine." 



This form of pine has been confounded with another of the 

 Thimble-cone group, the Scrub Pine (Pinus contorta Loud.), a 

 storm-beaten tree of the immediate coast from Mendocino City 

 to the islands of Alaska, with irregular, mostly cylindrical cones, 

 and short, stiff leaves; and also, with another of the same class, 

 the Tamarack Pine (P. Murrayana, "Oreg. Com."), a thick-trunked 



Erythea, Vol. VI, No. 8 [31 August, 1898]. 



