428 A HANDBOOK OF CONIFER.E 



all kinds of purposes where strength and durabihty are concerned, 

 and particularly in bridge-building, heavy-construction work, 

 naval architecture, church and school furniture and fittings, 

 masts, telegraph poles, railway sleepers, flooring blocks, parquet 

 flooring, etc. The three yellow pines, P. palustris, P. mitis, 

 and P. Tceda, produced between them 26,264,000 railway sleepers 

 in 1910 and 14,115,681 in 1915. Some of the wood is very 

 prettUy marked and the best specimens are utilized in the furniture 

 trade and for panelling. P. palustris is the most important resin- 

 producing tree in the United States, and large numbers of people 

 find employment in tapping and distillation. There is also an 

 industry connected with the extraction of a fibre from the leaves 

 which is utilized for stuffing mattresses, pillows, cushions, etc., 

 and also for surgical dressings, and for weaving into matting 

 which somewhat resembles coconut matting in general appear- 

 ance. The by-products obtained in the preparation of the fibre 

 have some medicinal value. By destructive distillation of the 

 wood, pitch, tar, tar oils and charcoal are obtained. The wood 

 has also a high fuel value. 



P. palustris requires a warm temperate or sub-tropical climate 

 with plenty of moisture in the soil and atmosphere. It thrives 

 on a variety of soOs of a sandy or gravelly nature, attaining 

 its best development in moist but weU-drained, deep, Hght, 

 warm, sandy loam. It, however, also succeeds on marshy land, 

 where the surface is moderately dry. Good seed-years are of 

 irregular occurrence, but following a good year there is a fair 

 average crop of seedlings if the seeds fall upon a suitable seed- 

 bed. Where conditions are not very favourable and P. Tceda is 

 a companion tree the latter usually replaces P. palustris. 



Mohr and Roth, The Timber Pines of the Southern United States ( 1897 ) ; Brown, 

 "N. C, Forest Products : their Manufacture and Use (1919). 



Pinus parviflora,^ Siebold and Zuccarini. 

 Japanese White Peste. 



Pinus Cembra, Thiinberg (not Linnfpus) ; P. fomiosana, Hayata ; 

 P. morrisonicola, Hayata ; P. parvifolia, Hort. ; P. pentaphylla, Mayr. 

 Himeko-matsu. 



A tree usually 20-50 ft. high, occasionally taUer, with a girth 

 of 3-5 ft. Young trees pyramidal, mature trees with flat heads 

 of stout, spreading branches. Bark thin, smooth and greyish, 

 ultimately becoming darker in colour and scaly on old trees. 

 Young shoots greyish, with a scattered minute down. Winter 

 buds ovoid, less than J in. long, slightly resinous. Leaves mostly 

 in fives, lasting 3-4 years, slender, curved, 1-2 in. long, margins 

 finely toothed, apex usually blunt, the inner flat surfaces marked 



^ Pimis Uyematsui, Hajata (Icon. PI. Form. iii. 192, t. xxxv, 1913) is a 

 Formosan species resembling P. parviflora but with much longer cylindrical cones 

 which have very thin scales. Not in cultivation. 



