52 PINES 



are casting wistful glances on its possibilities to make 

 good bare defects. 



The tree is in shape of a stunted type. Its short- 

 ness of leaf (about ijin. long), its plentiful abundance 

 of persistent cones, tapering to a point, and curved 

 as a ram's horn, make it intelligibly conspicuous to 

 any observer. 



Of this tree it is written, as of most of its group, 

 that it is of no ornamental or any other value. The 

 old Greek gods of an ancient world had a custom of 

 converting beautiful maidens and glowing youths in 

 whose career they were interested, and generally 

 those who had been cut off before their prime by some 

 untimely fate, into the forms of trees and shrubs, or 

 lovely flowers. What form of man, or figure of a 

 woman, would these all-glorious old Pagan deities 

 have selected to immortalize by converting into the 

 shape of any member of the Banksiana group — the 

 majority of which are inelegant, and the remainder 

 of which are squat of shape — and converted them 

 on their usually adopted principle of similia 

 similibus (like to like), we tremble to think. We 

 will leave it to our readers to select their own model, 

 and, if they so wish, from the circle of their own 

 acquaintance. 



PINASTER GROUP OF BIN^ (TWO-LEAVED) 



PINES 



P. Pinaster, Pinea, Sylvestris, Densiflora, 

 Montana, Contorta, Resinosa, Thunbergii, 

 Laricio, Leucodermis. 



lift to the skies her canopy of woods. 



The Pinaster Group. — ^The net result of opinion 

 collected from the various sources of authorities, 

 writers, and tree-growers of past and present days 

 seems to amount to this : that, whereas the Banksiana 



