10 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



CONIFEKJE. 



The Stone Pine is cultivated often on a large scale in southern 

 Europe for its seeds ; as an ornamental tree it has heen freely used 

 to decorate the gardens of Italy and the other countries of southern 

 Europe, which owe roach to its peculiar and picturesque habit. 

 (See Gilpin, Forest Scenery , i. 83. — Loudon, A rb. Brit. iv. 2224, t.) 

 It was introduced into British plantations before the middle of the 

 sixteenth century, but, although it survives the winters in favored 

 localities in southern England and Ireland, it does not flourish 

 there ; in the United States it is not hardy in the middle and north- 

 ern Atlantic states, but in California the Stone Pine, although still 

 young, promises to grow rapidly to its largest size. 



88 Linnseus, Spec. 1000 (1753). — Lambert, Pinus, i. 34, t. 23, 

 24. — Willdenow, Spec. iv. pt. i. 500. — De Candolle, Lamarck Fl. 

 Franc, ed. 3, iii. 275. — Nouveau Duhamel, v. 248, t. 77, f. 1. — 

 Brotero, Hist. Nat. Pinheiros, Larices e Abetos, 20. — Link, Abhand. 

 Akad. Berl. 1827, 179; Linncea, xv. 513. — Ledebour, Fl. Alt. iv. 

 200 ; Fl. Ross. iii. 673. — Forbes, Pinetum Woburn. 69, 73, t. 27. — 

 Antoine, Conif. 45, t. 20, f. 2. — Schouw, Ann. Sci. Nat. se"r. 

 3, iii. 238 {Conif Ires d'ltalie). — Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 141. — 

 Reichenbach, Icon. Fl. German, xi. 3, t. 530. — Hartig, Forst. 

 Culturpfl. Deutschl. 11, t. 7. — Carriere, Traite Conif. 295. — 

 Koch, Syn. Fl. German, ed. 3, ii. 578. — Gordon, Pinetum, 219. — 

 Parlatore, Fl. Ital. iv. 55 ; De Candolle Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 402. — 

 K. Koch, Dendr. ii. pt. ii. 316. — Masters, Jour. Linn. Soc. xviii. 

 505 {Conifers of Japan). — Beissner, Handb. Nadelh. 276, f. 

 65-67. — Hempel & Wilhelm, Baume und Strducher, i. 173, f. 99- 

 106, t. 8. 



Pinus montana, Lamarck, Fl. Franc, iii. 651 (not Miller) 



(1778). 

 Pinus Cedrus, Uspenski, Bull. Soc. Nat. Mosc. 1834, 389 (not 



Linnseus). 

 Pinus Cembra, y Helvetica, Forbes, I. c. 71 (1839). 



Pinus Cembra inhabits the mountains of central Europe, where, 

 mingled on the lower slopes with the upper Spruces and Firs, it 

 ascends above the Mountain Pine and the Larch, and with Alders, 

 Rhododendrons, and alpine Willows forms scattered groves along 

 the timber-line at elevations as high as seven thousand five hundred 

 feet above the sea-level ; it is common in northern Russia and in 

 Siberia, where it sometimes forms pure forests of great extent. It 

 is an exceedingly slow-growing tree, with an erect trunk covered 

 with smooth pale bark and clothed while young with short slender 

 horizontal whorled branches forming a narrow symmetrical pyra- 

 mid which becomes open and picturesque in old age by the turning 

 up of the branches ; it occasionally attains a height of one hundred 

 and twenty feet, although on the mountains of Europe it is rarely 

 more than half this size. The leaves are borne in from three to 

 five-leaved clusters and are short, stout, rigid, blue-green, clustered 

 at the ends of the thick branchlets, and nearly as long as the ovate 

 erect cones, which are about three inches long and two and a half 

 inches wide, with broad thin scales and somewhat triangular seeds 

 half an inch in length. The wood of Pinus Cembra is soft, close- 

 grained, nearly white and slightly tinged with red, easily worked, 

 and very durable ; it is valued in cabinet-making and turnery, 

 and is largely employed in Europe for wood-carvings. The seeds 

 are used as food, and oil employed as food and for illuminating 

 purposes is pressed from them in Europe. (Loudon, Arb. Brit. iv. 

 2274. — Mathieu, Fl. Forestiere, ed. 3, 543.) In Siberia the seeds 

 often form an important article of diet and are employed medi- 

 cinally. (See Gmelin, Fl. Sibir. i. 181.) Carpathian balsam, a 

 colorless oleo-resin with a pleasant odor and an acrid bitter flavor, 

 is derived from Pinus Cembra. 



Pinus Cembra, in spite of its slow growth, has long been valued 



as an ornament of parks and gardens, and is frequently planted in 

 the eastern United States, where it is hardy in New England. 



The dwarf Pine, which covers the high summits of the mountains 

 of northern Japan with broad almost impenetrable thickets four or 

 five feet high, grows also in Saghalin, Kamtschatka, and the Kurile 

 Islands, and is erroneously said to cross Bering Strait to the Aleu- 

 tian Islands, has often been considered a variety of Pinus Cembra, 

 but from its habit and geographical range is now usually consid- 

 ered a species. It is : — 



Pinus pumila, Regel, Cat. Sem. Hort. Petrop. 1858, 23 ; Bull. 

 Soc. Nat. Mosc. xxxii. pt. i. 211 ; Russ. Dendr. ed. 2, pt. i. 48. — 

 Trautvetter, Act. Hort. Petrop. ix. 210 (Incrementa Fl. Ross."). — 

 Mayr, Monog. Abiet. Jap. 80, t. 6, f. 21. — Herder, Act. Hort. 

 Petrop. xi. 91 (PI. Radd.). 



Pinus Cembra, b pumila, Pallas, Fl. Ross. i. 4, t. 2, f. E-H 



(1784). — Endlicher, I. c. 142. — Maximowicz, Mem. Sav. Mtr. 



Acad. St. Petersbourg, ix. 262 (Prim. Fl. Amur.). — Parlatore, 



De Candolle Prodr. I. c. 402. — Masters, I. c. 

 Pinus Cembra pygmoza, Loudon, I. c. 2276 (1838). 

 Pinus Mandshurica, Ruprecht, Bull. Phys. Math. Acad. Sci. St. 



Petersbourg, xv. 382 (1857). 



84 D. Don, Lambert Pinus, ed. 2, ii. t. (1828). — Forbes, I. c. 

 53, t. 19.— Royle, 111. 353, t. 85, f. 2. — Antoine, I. c. 29, t. 10. — 

 Madden, Jour. Agric. and Hort. Soc. India, iv. pt. iv. 228 ; vii. pt. ii. 

 83 (Himalayan Conif erce). — Endlicher, I.e. 159. — Carriere, I.e. 

 333. — Gordon, I. c. 195. — Parlatore, I. c. 391. — K. Koch, I. c. 

 315. — Aitchison, Jour. Linn. Soc. xviii. 98 (Fl. Kuram Valley). — 

 Boissier, Fl. Orient, v. 696. — Hooker f . Fl. Brit. Ind. v. 652. — 

 Beissner, I. c. 250. 



Pinus Gerardiana is a tree, occasionally sixty feet in height, with 

 a trunk four feet in diameter, although usually much smaller and 

 generally only thirty or forty feet tall, with thin smooth gray-green 

 or silvery bark exfoliating in long thin scales and exposing as they 

 separate the smooth darker colored inner bark, a broad round- 

 topped head of stout spreading or pendent branches ascending 

 toward their extremities, smooth dark brown branchlets, dark 

 green leaves in clusters of three, stout cones from six to nine 

 inches in length, and cylindrical seeds an inch long. It inhabits 

 the arid inner valleys of northwestern India, growing usually at 

 altitudes varying from five thousand eight hundred feet to twelve 

 thousand feet above the sea, often on dry steep rocky slopes ; and, 

 although gregarious, it does not generally form pure forests, be- 

 ing frequently associated with the Deodar. The seeds are so valu- 

 able for food that the trees are rarely cut, and the hard resinous 

 dark yellow-brown wood is little used. Baskets and water-buckets 

 are, however, made from the bark. The cones are gathered be- 

 fore they open and are heated to expand the scales and secure 

 the seeds. These are stored for winter use, and are often ground 

 and mixed with flour. In Kunawar they are a staple article of 

 food, and they form a considerable article of Indian commerce. 

 The seeds and the oil extracted from them are used medicinally 

 in India in native practice (Balfour, Encyclopedia of India, ed. 3, 

 iii. 221). 



In the gardens of western and central Europe Pinus Gerardiana 

 survives, but grows very slowly ; and it has not yet shown its 

 ability to endure the climate of the United States. 



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

 Raw Commercial Products, ii. 1427. — Jackson, Commercial Botany 

 of the 19th Century, 136. 



36 Jackson, Gard. Chron. ser. 3, iii. 171. — Mohr, Bull. No. 13 For- 

 estry Div. U. S. Dept. Agric. 48 (Timber Pines of the Southern U. S.). 



87 Soubeiran & Thiersant, Mat. Med. Chin. 134. 



