CONIFERS. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



PI. Jap. i. 464. — Masters, Jour. Linn. Soc. xviii. 504 {Conifers of 

 Japan).— Mayr, Monog. Abiet. Jap. 69, t. 5, f. 16, t. 7, f. 1.— 

 Beissner, Handb. Nadelh. 24S. 



Pinus sylvestris, Thunberg, Fl. Jap. 274 (not Linnseus) (1784). 

 Pinus Pinaster, Loudon, Arb. Brit. iv. 2218 (in part) (not 



Aiton) (1838). — Gordon, Pinetum, 176 (in part). 

 Pinus Massoniana, Siebold & Zuecarini, Fl. Jap. ii. 24, t. 113, 



114 (not Lambert) (1842 ?). — Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 174. — Car- 

 riere, Traite Conif. 378. — A. Murray, Pines and Firs of Japan, 



23, f. 39-54. — Miquel, Ann. Mus. Bot. Lugd. Bat. iii. 166 (Prol. 



Fl. Jap.). — K. Koch, Dendr. ii. pt. ii. 282. — Gordon, I. c. ed. 



2, 241. 



Pinus Thunbergii, the Kura-matsu or Black Pine of Japan, in- 

 habits northern China and Corea. In Japan it is extremely rare 

 except in cultivation, if it ever grows naturally, but has been exten- 

 sively planted and appears as a tree frequently eighty feet in height, 

 with a trunk three feet in diameter covered with deeply furrowed 

 dark bark, a broad head of stout contorted often pendulous 

 branches, thick dark green leaves in clusters of two, white branch 

 buds, and small clustered cones. 



It is with this tree that the plantations on the sandy coast-plains 

 of Japan are chiefly made ; it shades many of the principal high- 

 ways of the country, and is used to cover arbors with its artificially 

 elongated branches, or to hang over the sides of moated walls ; it 

 is to be seen in every garden, where it is frequently dwarfed or 

 trained in fantastic shapes, and by the Japanese is the most revered 

 of all Pine-trees. The wood is moderately strong but coarse- 

 grained and resinous, and in Japan is used in large quantities in the 

 construction of buildings and for fuel, being rendered cheap by 

 the rapid growth of the tree on sterile sandy soil unsuitable for the 

 production of other crops (Dupont, Essences Forestieres du Japon, 

 10. — Rein, Industries of Japan, 236, 273. — Sargent, Forest Fl. 

 Jap. 79). 



Pinus Thunbergii has flourished for many years in the gardens of 

 Europe, and in those of the eastern United States, where it is per- 

 fectly hardy as far north, at least, as eastern Massachusetts (Sar- 

 gent, Garden and Forest, vi. 458). 



28 Siebold & Zuecarini, I. c. 22, t. 112 (1842?). — Endlicher, 

 I c. 172. — Carriere, I. c. 376. — Gordon, I. c. Suppl. 58. — A. Mur- 

 ray, I. c. 32, f. 55-68. — Miquel, I. c. 165. — Parlatore, De Can- 

 dolle Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 388. — K. Koch, I. c. 285. — Franchet & 

 Savatier, Enum. PI. Jap. i. 464. — Masters, I. c. 503. — Mayr, I. c. 

 72, t. 5, f. 17, t. 6, f ., t. 7, f . 5. — Beissner, I. c. 247. 



? Pinus Japonica, Forbes, Pinetum Woburn. 33 (1839). — An- 



toine, Conif. 23. 

 Pinus scopifera, Miquel, Zollinger Syst. Verz. Ind. Archip. 82 



(1854). 

 Pinus Pinea, Gordon, I. c. 179 (in part) (not Linnseus) (1858). 



Pinus densiflora, the Aka-matsu or Red Pine of Japan, is common 

 in the mountain forests of central Hondo at elevations of from 

 three to four thousand feet above the sea-level, where it is very 

 generally distributed among deciduous-leaved trees ; it also grows 

 in Corea and northern China. It is a tree seventy or eighty feet 

 in height, with a slender trunk covered toward the top and on the 

 short slender contorted branches with thin light red bark separating 

 in loose scales, with thin light green leaves in clusters of two, and 

 small crowded cones. The Red Pine is generally planted with the 

 Black Pine in the artificial forests of Japan, but is less frequently 

 used in Japanese gardens. In commerce the wood is not distin- 

 guished from that of Pinus Thunbergii. and is used for the same 

 purposes (Dupont, I. c. 10. — Rein, I. c. — Sargent, Forest Fl. Jap. 

 79). Pinus densiflora, which often appears in gardens under the 



name of Pinus Massoniana, is perfectly hardy in New England, 

 where it produces cones in great profusion, and already begins to 

 show the picturesque habit which distinguishes it in its native land 

 (Sargent, Garden and Forest, ii. 538). 



24 Aiton, Hort. Kew. iii. 367 (1789). — Lambert, Pinus, i. 21, t. 

 9. — Willdenow, Spec. iv. pt. i. 496. — Link, Abhand. Akad. Berl. 

 1827, 175 ; Linnoza, xv. 498. — Forbes, I. c. 29. — Antoine, I. c. 18, 

 t. 6, f. 1. — Visiani, Fl. Balm. i. 199. — Sehouw, Ann. Sci. Nat. 

 se"r. 3, iii. 235 (Conif "eres d'ltalie). — Endlicher, I. c. 168. — Reich- 

 enbach, Icon. Fl. German, vi. 2, t. 575. — Carriere, I. c. 365. — Gor- 

 don, Pinetum, 176. — Willkomm & Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hispan. i. 

 19. — Parlatore, Fl. Ital. iv. 37 ; De Candolle Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 

 382. — K. Koch, I. c. 290. — Laguna, Conif eras y Amentdceas Es- 

 panolas, 29 ; Fl. Forestal Espanola, 89, 1. 10. — Beissner, I. c. 221. — 

 Hempel & Wilhelm, Bdume und Strducher, i. 167, f. 92, 95. 

 Pinus sylvestris, 0, Linnaeus, Spec. 1000 (1753). 

 Pinus Laricio, Santi, Viagg. 59, t. 1 (not Poiret) (1795). — 



Savi, Fl. Pis. 253. 

 Pinus glomerata, Salisbury, Prodr. 398 (1796). 

 Pinus maritima, Poiret, Lamarck Diet. v. 337 (not Miller) 



(1804). — Brotero, Fl. Lusitan. ii. 284 ; Hist. Nat. Pinheiros, 



Larices e Abetos, 8. — De Candolle, Lamarck Fl. Franc, ed. 3, iii. 



273. — Nouveau Duhamel, v. 240, t. 72, 72 bis. 

 Pinus Syrtica, Thore, Promenade en Gascogne, 161 (1810). 



Pinus Pinaster, which is usually called the Maritime Pine, is a 

 tree sixty or seventy feet in height, with a stout and often more 

 or less inclined or crooked trunk covered with very thick deeply 

 fissured dark bark, a dense round-topped head, stout rigid dark 

 green leaves in clusters of two and from five to eight inches in 

 length, and large ovoid cylindrical lustrous dark brown cones borne 

 in whorls in close many-coned clusters. It inhabits sandy plains 

 generally near the coast in western and southern France, Spain, 

 and Portugal, Corsica, Italy, Dalmatia, Greece, and Algeria, and 

 has been largely planted to protect the shifting sands of the coast 

 dunes and to cover the Landes of southwestern France. These 

 plantations, commenced by Bre'montier in 1789, now extend over 

 at least three hundred square miles, and stretch along the shore 

 of the Bay of Biscay from the Gironde to the Adour ; they have 

 proved entirely successful and one of the greatest triumphs of 

 modern agriculture, Pinus Pinaster being especially fitted to hold 

 loose sands by its power to grow freely from seeds planted in ex- 

 posed situations, its rapid growth in sterile soil, and the strong grasp 

 of its powerful deep descending and spreading roots. 



The wood of the Maritime Pine is hard, strong, coarse-grained, 

 very resinous, and reddish brown, and is used in the construction 

 of buildings, for railway-ties, telegraph-poles, and piles, and for 

 fuel. This tree, however, is most valuable for its resinous pro- 

 ducts which are chiefly obtained in the planted forests of south- 

 western France, which are systematically worked for this crop and 

 afford the principal employment to the inhabitants of the region. 



In the French pineries trees with a trunk diameter of from 

 twelve to eighteen inches are considered large enough to work 

 profitably for resin. This is obtained by making near the ground 

 a cut a few inches wide and about five inches high through the 

 bark into the wood ; at the base of the cut a small earthen pot is 

 hung to receive the resiu, which flows into it over a flat piece of 

 zinc ; during the season, which lasts from March until the middle 

 of October, the cut is slightly enlarged upward once or twice a 

 week to improve the flow of resin, until at the end of five or six 

 years it is ten or twelve feet long, the pot being raised as the cut 

 is carried upward and the workman being obliged to use a ladder 

 made by cutting notches in a small pole in order to empty it. The 



