CONIFERS. 



8ILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



9 



Aleppo Pine requires, however, light and heat, and does not endure 

 the winters of cold countries. Its great value consists in the pro- 

 tection it is able to afford the soil of steep dry hillsides. The 

 wood, although coarse-grained and resinous, is somewhat used in 

 construction, especially in northern Africa, and largely for fuel. 

 In southern France and in the eastern Mediterranean countries the 

 forests of Aleppo Pine are worked for the production of resin, 

 which, however, it yields in smaller quantities than Pinus Pinaster. 

 (See Loudon, Arb. Brit. iv. 2233. — Mathieu, Fl. Forestiere, ed. 3, 

 529.) 



26 Pinus Roxburghii. 



Pinus longifolia, Lambert, Pinus, i. 29, t. 21 (not Salisbury) 



(1803). — Nouveau Duhamel, v. 247. — Willdenow, Spec, iv.pt. 



ii. 500. — Roxburgh, Fl. Ind. ed. 2, iii. 651. — Royle, 111. 353, t. 



85, f. 1. — Forbes, Pinetum Woburn. 55, t. 20. — Antoine, Conif 



29, t. 9. — Link, Linncea, xv. 507. — Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 



158.— McClellan, Griffith Notul. iv. 18 ; Icon. PI. Asiat. t. 369, 



370. — Madden, Jour. Agric. and Hort. Soc. Ind. iv. pt. iv. 223 ; 



vii. pt. ii. 75 (Himalayan Conif erce). — Carriere, Traite Conif. 



332. — Gordon, Pinetum, 200. — Parlatore, De Candolle Prodr. 



xvi. pt. ii. 390. — Hooker f . Fl. Brit. Ind. v. 652. — Beissner, 



Handb. Nadelh. 251. 



Pinus Roxburghii often forms open forests on the outer ranges of 

 the Himalayas, where it is distributed from Afghanistan to Bho- 

 tan, usually at elevations of from fifteen hundred to six thousand 

 feet above the level of the sea, although in Kamaon occasionally 

 ascending fifteen hundred feet higher, and flourishing equally in 

 the humid semitropical valleys of Sikkim and on the arid sandstone 

 hills of the upper Punjab. It is a tree sometimes a hundred feet 

 in height, with a tall and usually naked trunk occasionally four 

 feet in diameter, although it is generally smaller and often gnarled 

 and stunted ; it has thick and deeply furrowed bark, a round- 

 topped open head of stout branches often ascending at the extremi- 

 ties, dark or light green leaves in clusters of three and from nine 

 to twelve inches in length, and long solitary or whorled cones. It 

 produces moderately hard and strong easily worked yellow or red- 

 brown resinous wood, which, although not durable, is largely used 

 in many of the northern districts of India in construction, for shin- 

 gles and tea-chests, and in the manufacture of charcoal. This tree 

 furnishes the largest part of the resin produced in India ; it is 

 obtained by making triangular-shaped incisions or cups in the 

 trunk, or by stripping off the bark, the usual product from an 

 average sized tree being from ten to twenty pounds in the first 

 year and about one third as much in the second year, after which 

 the tree generally dies. Tar is obtained by the slow combustion of 

 chips of the resinous wood in earthen pots closed and covered with 

 wet soil ; dried cow-dung is used as fuel, and the tar, running 

 through holes in the bottom of the pot, flows into a second jar bur- 

 ied in the ground below it. Spirits of turpentine is distilled in 

 some of the northwest provinces from the crude turpentine yielded 

 by this tree (Pharmacographia Indica, vi. 378). Pieces of the 

 wood of stumps of trees which have been worked for turpentine 

 are used for torches, and as candles in houses and mines. The 

 bark contains considerable quantities of tannin identical with that 

 of oak bark, and is used in India in tanning leather, and as fuel in 

 smelting iron (Bastin & Trimble, Am. Jour. Pharm. lxviii. 139). 

 Charcoal made from the leaves mixed with rice water serves as 

 a substitute for ink ; and the seeds are edible, sometimes furnishing 

 in times of famine an important supply of food (Brandis, Forest 

 Fl. Brit. Ind. 506. — Gamble, Man. Indian Timbers, 396. — Bal- 

 four, Encyclopaedia of India, ed. 3, iii. 221). 



Pinus Roxburghii is cultivated on the plains of northern India, 



but it has not proved hardy in Europe except in exceptionally 

 favorable positions, or in the eastern United States ; and it is 

 rarely seen in the gardens of temperate countries. 



~ 7 Tar by distillation yields pyroligneous acid and oil of tar, the 

 residue being pitch, which is largely used commercially in caulking 

 vessels and medicinally as a gentle stimulant and tonic. Tar is 

 employed in cases of chronic catarrh ; its vapor is inhaled in the 

 treatment of bronchitis ; and ointment of tar is sometimes applied 

 to relieve cutaneous diseases (U. S. Dispens. ed. 16, 1174). 



28 Oil of turpentine is used as a solvent for several resins and 

 for sulphur, phosphorus, caoutchouc, wax, and fats, and is largely 

 consumed in the manufacture of varnish and paint. 



29 Woodville, Med. Bot. iii. 572. — Fliickiger & Hanbury, Phar- 

 macographia, 545. — Johnson, Man. Med. Bot. N. Am. 256. — Mills- 

 paugh, Am. Med. Plants in Homoeopathic Remedies, ii. 163-2. — 

 U. S. Dispens. ed. 16, 1485. 



80 Spons, Encyclopaedia of the Industrial Arts, Manufactures, and 

 Raw Commercial Products, ii. 1408. 



81 Spons, I. c. 1680. 



32 Linnaeus, Spec. 1000 (1753). — Desfontaines, Fl. Atlant. ii. 

 352. — Lambert, Pinus, i. 11, t. 6-8. — Brotero, Fl. Lusitan. ii. 286 ; 

 Hist. Nat. Pinheiros, Larices e Abetos, 11. — Willdenow, Spec. iv. 

 pt. i. 497. — De Candolle, Lamarck Fl. Franc, ed. 3, iii. 273. — 

 Nouveau Duhamel, v. 242, t. 72 bis, f. 3, t. 73. — Link, Abhand. 

 Akad. Berl. 1827, 178 ; Linno&a, xv. 499. — Antoine, I. c. 20, t. 3, 

 f. 2. — Visiani, Fl. Dalm. i. 199. — Schouw, Ann. Sci. Nat. se"r. 3, 

 iii. 236 (Conif eres d'ltalie). — Endlicher, I. c. 182. — Reichenbach, 

 Icon. Fl. German, xi. 3, t. 528, 530. — Koch, Syn. Fl. German, ed. 

 3, ii. 578. — Carriere, I. v. 402. — Gordon, I. c. 179. — Willkomm 

 & Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hispan. i. 20. — Parlatore, Fl. Ital. iv. 34 ; 

 De Candolle Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 381. — K. Koch, Dendr. ii. pt. ii. 

 270. — Laguna, Coniferas y Amentdceas Espanolas, 29 ; Fl. Forestal 

 Espanola, 49, t. 4, 5. — Boissier, Fl. Orient, v. 694. — Beissner, I. c 

 220. — Hempel & Wilhelm, Baume und Straucher, 170, f . 94, 95. 

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

 Pinus Maderiensis, Tenore, Ind. Sem. Hort. Neap. 1854 ; Ann. 



Sci. Nat. se"r. 4, ii. 379. 



Pinus Pinea now inhabits the Mediterranean basin from Portugal 

 to Syria, growing usually in the neighborhood of the coast and 

 often forming pure forests of considerable extent, although it is not 

 improbable that the region it occupied naturally has been extended 

 westward through ancient cultivation, as this Pine, which was valued 

 by the Greeks and Romans for its picturesque habit as well as for 

 its edible seeds, in southern France and Spain rarely grows far 

 from human habitations. It is a, tree with a stout erect or often 

 inclining trunk free of branches for fifty or sixty feet, covered with 

 thin smooth reddish bark, and surmounted with a. flat parasol-like 

 head of spreading branches ; it has deep dark green leaves in 

 clusters of two and seven o/ eight inches in length, stout ovate 

 obtuse cones, almost as long as the leaves, which do not mature 

 until the third season, and thick-shelled nearly cylindrical seeds 

 three quarters of an inch in length. The wood is almost white, 

 slightly resinous and easily worked, and in southern Europe is 

 sometimes used for the interior finish of buildings, in cabinet- 

 making, and for water pipes and the outside sheathing of boats. 

 The Stone Pine, as this tree is commonly called in English, is most 

 valued, however, for its abundant crops of seeds. These furnish » 

 large amount of food to the inhabitants of southern Europe, who 

 eat them roasted, or grind them into flour ; they are exported in 

 small quantities to northern Europe and the United States, and the 

 large Pine seeds sold in the markets of eastern American cities are 

 the product of Pinus Pinea. 



