BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION — CUBAN PINE. 77 



of his species with I'inus cubensis of (rrisebiu-ii. Recently these various forms were found to be 

 the siime as Elliott's, to wliich they h;ive heeii i'efeir('(l with liis varietal iiaiuf heterophifJla raised 

 to si)eciflc. rank. The tree is little known among the inhabitants of the region of its growth; it is 

 generally regarded as a mere variety or bastard form of the Longleaf or the Loblolly Pine. In 

 Florida, where best known, it is distinguished as the Slash Pine, or Swamp Pine;; and in the flat 

 woods along the seashore in Alabama and Mississippi as Meadow I'ine. In a few localities in 

 Alabama it is generally called Spruce Pine. 



DESCRIPTION AND MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS. 



The leaves, two or three in a bundle, are surrounded by a smooth sheath from one-half to 

 nearly an inch in length, which, close and smooth daring the first season, ])ecome loose and 

 shriveled in the second year (PI. X, d). The leaves are from S to 12, mostly !* inches in length 

 and three-fourths of a line wide, glossy, of a deep-green color and closely serrulate with a short, 

 rigid point, rounded on the back, the binary leaves deeply conclave and the ternate bluntly keeled. 

 They arise from the axils of fringed deciduous bracts, are densely crowded toward the end of the 

 branches, and are shed by the close of the second season. Bundles with two leaves are most 

 frequently observed in younger trees and almost invariablj* on the fertile branclilets. 



The resin ducts are internal, variable in size, and in number fi-om four to six and over, close to 

 the thin-walled liundle sheaths, whicli inclose two closely approximate tibrovascular bundles, often 

 coalescing. The tibrovascular region, like the ducts, shows no hypodermal or strengthening cells. 

 The hypodermal cells underlying the epidermis are as large as the epidermal cells, in the angles 

 of one or several layers. 



Flowers. — The catkin-like male flowers (PI. X, o, h), from U to 2 inches long, are of dark 

 purple (royal purple) color, supported on a short stalk and surrounded by about a dozen involucral 

 coriaceous bracts, of which the lowest pair is strongly keeled (PI. X, /;, slightly magnified), the 

 others being oblong with fringed edges. From ten to twenty of these cylindrical flowers are crowded 

 in dense clusters below the apex of the youngest shoots, and are shed almost immediately after the 

 discharge of their abundant pollen. The anthers are crowned with a purplish crescent-shaped 

 denticulate crest. The female flowers form an oval, piuk-coloreil ament borne on a stalk, from one- 

 half to 1 inch in length, which singly, more frequently several in number, are produced close to 

 the terminal bud of the shoot of the season (PI. X, d). First erect, they are, at the lapse of a 

 month, horizontally reflected, the shoot bearing them increasing rapidly in length during the same 

 time, long before the unfolding of its leaf buds. The involucral scales or bracts which surround 

 the female catkin are more numerous, narrower, longer, and more membranaceous than those form- 

 ing the involucra of the male flowers. The carpellary scales are round with a slender, erect tip, 

 their lower half covered by the broad refuse bract. 



A tree discovered by Dr. Mellichamps near Bluttton, S. C, showed the remarkable anomaly 

 of producing androgynous flowers regularly every season. In most of the specimens examined 

 every one of the male flowers clustering around the base of the terminal bud of the very young 

 shoot had the upper part of the floral axis covered with female flowers, appearing like a distinct 

 inflorescence superimposed upon the staminodial column, occupying generally one-third of its 

 height. In one of the flowers they were seen to extend near to its base. In a single instance it 

 was observed that the female flowers extended on one side of the staminodial column in a narrow- 

 streak among the stamens. 



In a specimen from the same locality the terminal shoot of the season, exceeding in length the 

 male flowers by wliich its base was surrounded, was bearing a normal subterininal female anient. 

 The short-stalked cones are ovate or conical, rather obtuse, horizontally retlexed, from i to ."i inches 

 long, about '2h inches greatest width, of glossy leather-brown or hazel color (PI. XI, a and /*); 

 scales about 2 inches long averaging five-eighths of an inch in width, somewhat flexible, the 

 prominent ridge of the pyramidal striated umbo with a short, mostly straight, strong jirickle 

 (PL XI, <■ and d). By the end of the lirst season the conelets are scarcely an inch long (PL X, d). 

 Before the close of the summer of the succeeding year, the cones have reached their full size, 

 maturing during the month of October. In the riite cones, already described, the apophyses of 

 the scales in the lower rows are almost pointless, becoming on the upper strongly nuicronate. 

 The cones remain on the tree until the ai)proach of the next summer, leaving on their separation 

 the lowest rows of the scales behind. 



