40 PINES 



which, under the process of translation, emerges as 

 *' furnished with a protuberance or any projecting 

 substance." It was introduced in 1847, and cannot 

 be accounted to have thrived in England. 



These trees, with asymmetrical oblique and per- 

 sistent cones, are spoken of among botanists as 

 serotinous, which may be taken to mean that some 

 untimely episode in the natural course of events 

 happens to take place in the course of their existence, 

 and the event referred to in this case has reference 

 to the shedding of their seeds. Serotinous is a word 

 which literally taken means "late in the day," and 

 equally might apply to human action as to tree 

 habits. 



Three agents there are said to be which are 

 responsible for this process of seed distribution, and 

 they are : the wind, animals, and fire, and the P. 

 Tuberculata is only amenable to the influence 

 of the last. Of such a marked feature is this 

 persistent habit in the cone life of some Conifers — 

 as, for instance, in the case of the tree in question, 

 the Insignis, Muricata, Rigida, and others — that it 

 has been suggested that they should be reclassified 

 in accordance with this habit. Those who, at a 

 humble distance, have tried to master some of the 

 rudimentary arrangements of the past-masters of the 

 art, and to follow the modest amendments made from 

 time to time to a long-established classification, 

 which has gradually broadened and developed, in 

 unhurried discussion and with authoritative consen- 

 sus, must devoutly hope and one and all pray for a 

 deliverance from such a drastic overthrow of the 

 prescribed rules of the game that may leave so 

 many of us to begin anew once more, " to burn 

 what we have been taught to adore," and to bow 

 down before a new shibboleth. Heaven save us all 

 from a fate like this ! 



