THE MOUNTAIN PINE. 1 1 



The Mountain Pine is one of the least exacting of trees, 

 whether as regards soil, or aspect, or climate, and its require- 

 ments decrease with its stature. No doubt the humbler types, 

 and their frugal character, are the outcome of the miserable 

 homes to which the species has been for generations reduced. 

 The present distribution of the three varieties, and perhaps also 

 their origin, depends mainly on the encroachment of other 

 species. Even in this, its noblest form, the Mountain Pine can 

 thrive at altitudes where it has nothing to fear from the Scots 

 pine or silver fir. But the hardy spruce is a more dangerous 

 rival. Where it is present, the Mountain Pine is driven to 

 higher ground. In such situations, too inclement for the 

 Upright variety, the Mountain Pine is only found in the 

 many-stemmed Intermediate form. Farther east, according 

 to Miiller,! the Mountain Pine, even in this form, finds a 

 serious rival in Pinus Cembra, and it is only the Dwarf variety 

 that can scrape a living on the wind-swept tops to which 

 Pinus Cembra does not mount. In the Alps the Upright 

 variety is found only where the spruce is absent. The spruce 

 appears to avoid the Briangonnais because it is too dry. Here, 

 in the region above the Scots pine and silver fir, the Mountain 

 Pine has no rival but the larch, with which it lives on friendly 

 terms, germinating freely under the larch's light shade, and 

 taking full advantage later of its broken canopy. 



In the Pyrenees the conditions are still more favourable to 

 the Mountain Pine. There the spruce is, for some unexplained 

 reason, a scarce tree, found sparsely mixed with the silver fir, 

 but never as a ruling species. The larch is altogether absent. 

 The Mountain Pine consequently reigns supreme and almost 

 alone in vast tracts of forest; for where it can thrive in its 

 Upright form (and it is found in the Pyrenees in no other), it has 

 nothing to fear from the encroachments of Pnms Cembra, the only 

 other conifer of this high region. The Mountain Pine forests are 

 found on the Spanish as well as the French side of the frontier. 

 Their aspect is sombre, but very beautiful. Mile after mile they 

 mount over ground rough with boulders, and still plentifully 

 streaked with snow in the last days of May. The grey stems 

 are so straight and cylindrical, and the crowns so narrow, that 

 you seem to be in a larch forest which has exchanged its gay, 

 deciduous foliage for this deep perennial verdure. The finest 



1 P. E. Miiller, Tidsskrift for Skovbrug, Copenhagen, 1887. 



