CHAP, cxiii. coni'fer^. pi^nus. 2203 



in p. Pinaster, and all the pines which have either large and very scaly buds, 

 or which produce a great number of male catkins. The female catkins are 

 egg-shaped, reddish, becoming straight after flowering, and they are borne on 

 peduncles, from \ in. to iin. in length, surrounded at the base with scarious 

 scales ; the fleshy scales which form the female catkin are terminated by a 

 blunt triangular point, which is often persistent, and which, when the cone is 

 mature, renders it very slightly prickly. The cones are commonly in pairs, 

 but sometimes three and sometimes four occur together : they point hori- 

 zontally and slightly downwards, and sometimes they are slightly curved, so 

 as to be concave at the extremity of the side next the ground. They are 

 from 2 in. to 3 in., or more, in length ; of a ruddy yellow or tawny colour, or 

 greenish. They attain their full size in the November of the second year, and 

 shed their seeds in the April of the third year. The scales of the cones are 

 remarkably distinct from those of P. sylvestris, and the prickly cones of 

 I^nops, and TfeMa, on the one hand, and from the hard, angular, regular- 

 sided scales of the cones of the sections of Pinaster and Halepenses, on the 

 other. The seeds of P. Laricio are greyish, and marked with black spots : 

 deprived of their wings, they are scarcely a in. in length, but with the wings 

 they are more than 1 in. The tree is readily known from P. sylvestris by its 

 more conical form, and crowded, longer, and darker foliage ; and from P. Pi- 

 naster, from many of its branches being twisted, as it were, round the tree, 

 and from its foliage being shorter, more slender, and much darker. The rate 

 of growth, even in Britain, is more rapid than that of P. sylvestris in a 

 similar soil and situation ; being, in young trees, in the climate of London, 

 from 2 ft. to 3 ft. in a year. A tree in the Horticultural Society's Garden 

 (see the portrait of this tree in our last Volume), having been 12 years 

 planted, was, in 1834, 20 ft. high ; and is now ( 1837) 23 ft. high. A shoot of 

 the year 1829, with part of 1828, cut from a tree 5 years old, on M. Vilmorin's 

 estate at Barres, and sent to Mr. Lawson's museum, measured 3 ft. in length, 

 and 3| in. in circumference at the thickest end. The leading annual shoot of 

 a tree in the Horticultural Society's Garden, which was blown ofFon August 20. 

 1837, measured 2 ft. 6 in. in length, and J in. in diameter at the lower end, 

 where it had been pierced by an insect; and, though not arrived at their full 

 growth, its leaves, which are in part in threes, were 4 in. in length ; whilst those 

 of the last year's shoot, from which it sprang, were 85 in. In the Gardener's 

 Magazine (vol. i. p. 79.), it is stated, that, a young plant of P. Laricio being 

 planted in 1817, at the same time with a young plant of P. sylvestris, on a 

 sandy hill in one of the coldest counties of the eastern part of England, in 

 1825 the Scotch pine was only 6 ft. or 7 ft. high, while P. Laricio had attained 

 a height of upwards of 12 ft. In the arboretum of Messrs. Loddiges, this 

 pine has attained a larger size than any other species, and thrives better than 

 any other, with the exception of P. Pinaster and P. Pfnea, there being four 

 trees, under the names of P. Laricio, P. L. taurica, P. taui'ica, and P. romana, 

 from 20 ft. to 30 ft. high ; while the Scotch pine and its varieties are not 

 above 12 ft. high, and the American pines not above half that height. In 

 France, according to Thouin, P. Laricio grows two thirds faster than the 

 Scotch pine, placed in a similar soil and situation. The duration of the tree 

 in Corsica is from 70 to 80 years, and its average height about 130 ft. (40 

 metres) ; and the diameter of the trunk from 23 in. to 27 in. (6 to 7 ddcime- 

 tres). The finest young trees in the neighbourhood of London are in the 

 Horticultural Society's Garden ; and the finest old tree at Kew, where it is 

 named P. maritima, and of which a portrait is given in our last Volume. 



Geography. The Pinus Laricio is a native of Corsica, and of various other 

 parts of Europe P. B. Webb, Esq., discovered it on Mount Ida, in Phrygia, 

 and Mr. Hawkins found in Greece, on Cyllene, Taygetus, and the moun- 

 tains of Thasos, a sort of pine which, from the description given in Walpole's 

 Memoirs relative to Turkey, is considered by Mr. Lambert to be this species. 

 According to Baudrillart, it grows equally well on mountains of the second 

 order in the interior of Spain, on the simdy plains along the shores of the 

 Mediterranean, and in a great part of the north of France. It is said to be 



