115 



ABNORMAL NUMBER OF NEEDLES IN THE 

 SPURS OF PINUS LONGIFOLIA 



BY 



S. E. Kashyap 

 Professor of Botany, Government College, Lahore. 



Pinus Longifolia is a common connifer of the outer hills of 

 the Punjab Himalayas and is often cultivated in the plains. The 

 number of leaves in the dwarf shoots in this species is described in 

 the Indian Floras 1 as three. So constant is this number in the adult 

 plant that the writer has not come across a single example of a 

 different number during many years for which the plant has been 

 a subject of study in the Botany classes at the Lahore Government 

 College and in spite of a careful examination of several trees 

 recently. It came as a surprise therefore when, last year, while 

 examining a seedling he came across an abnormality in this respect 

 quite by chance. On examining the seedling further and later on 

 examining more seedlings many such instances were found. On 

 looking up the literature 2 of the subject it was found that the 

 abnormal number of needles in the spurs of many species both in the 

 seedling and the adult plant is by no means rare though no mention of 

 Pinus longifolia has been met with anywhere. Among a pretty large 

 number of species mentioned by Thomson (Botanical Gazette, May, 

 1914) in this connection, Pinus excelsa is the only Indian species. 

 Again although a number of observations are recorded in the papers 

 mentioned yet the writer has not come across any quantitive study of 

 this subject. This paper records a short study of this kind. 



In order to find out the relative frequency of plants with abnor- 

 mal spurs as regards the number of needles and the relative number 

 of different kinds of such spurs on the same plant one hundred and 

 one seedlings were taken from the nursery of the Lawrence Gardens, 

 Lahore, through the courtesy of the Superintendent, and carefully 



1 Hooker: Flora of British India; Brandis : Indian Trees, also his 

 Forest Flora ; Parker : Forest Flora of the Punjab, etc. Among other standard 

 books on this subject may be mentioned Elwes and Henry : The Trees of 

 Great Britain and Ireland. 



2 Thomson, R. B.: The Spur Shoots of the Pines. Bot. Gazette, May, 

 1914. Dufrenoy, J. : Pine Needles, Their significance and History. Bot. Gaz., 

 November, 1918. Reference to other literature bearing on this point is given 

 in these papers. 



