conifers. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 19 



of an inch long, with thin scales bright pinkish purple on the margins; they are raised on stout 

 peduncles nearly as long as the flowers and clothed with the ovate acute elongated bracts persistent 

 throughout the summer. The young cones enlarge during the spring and early summer, while their 

 peduncles lengthen and thicken and in the autumn begin to turn downward; during the winter they 

 are nearly horizontal or slightly pendulous, about an inch long, and light chestnut-brown, the stems 

 being from an inch to an inch and a half in length ; they begin to grow in very early spring, and when 

 the flowers expand are from an inch and a half to an inch and three quarters long, light green, and 

 pendulous by the recurving of their stems ; they now rapidly enlarge, reaching their full size about the 

 first of July, when they are cylindrical, acute, often more or less curved, bright green except at the 

 points of the scales, which are dark red-brown, from four to six inches in length, and about an inch in 

 diameter at the middle ; their scales are from an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half long, about 

 seven eighths of an inch wide, and oblong-obovate, with thin margins, the exposed portion being 

 smooth, rounded, and only slightly thickened on the back, and furnished at the very apex with a dark 

 resinous flat pointed umbo ; the cones open and discharge their seeds during September, and fall 

 gradually during the winter and in early spring. The seeds are narrowed at both ends, nearly a quarter 

 of an inch long, red-brown mottled with black, and about a quarter as long as the wings, with a thin 

 crustaceous coat produced into a narrow margin ; the cotyledons vary from eight to ten in number. 



Pinus Strobus is distributed from Newfoundland and the northern shore of the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence to the northward of Lake St. John and the head-waters of Moose River, and westward to 

 Lake Nipigon and the valley of the Winnipeg River ; 1 southward it ranges through the northern 

 states to southern Pennsylvania, the southern shore of Lake Michigan 2 and the banks of the Illinois 

 River, 3 Illinois, the valley of the Iowa River in central Iowa, 4 and along the Alleghany Mountains 

 to eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and to northern Georgia. Common in Newfoundland and the 

 eastern provinces of Canada, the White Pine is rare and of small size in the country north of Lake 

 Superior and on the Nipigon River ; it is scattered over the region between Lake Superior and the 

 Winnipeg River and in the neighborhood of Lonely Lake, and grows to its largest size and greatest 

 perfection in the valley of the St. Lawrence River, in northern New England, and in the region south 

 of the Great Lakes. Sometimes on sandy drift it forms nearly pure forests, but more often it is found 

 in groves, a few acres in extent, scattered through the forests of deciduous-leaved trees, on fertile 

 well-drained soil, where its roots can reach abundant and constant moisture. Less commonly it grows 

 on slight elevations and ridges surrounded by swamps, or along their borders and the banks of streams, 

 on river flats overflowed during part of the year, and occasionally in swamps, where it does not reach a 

 large size or produce valuable timber. South of Pennsylvania and of central Michigan and Minnesota 

 it is smaller, and less abundant and valuable. 



The wood of Pinus Strobus is light, soft, not strong, close, straight-grained, very resinous, 5 easily 

 worked, and susceptible of receiving a beautiful polish. It is light brown, often slightly tinged with 

 red, with thin nearly white sapwood, and contains numerous thin medullary rays and thin inconspicuous 

 bands of small summer cells. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.3854, a cubic 

 foot weighing 24.02 pounds. It is manufactured into lumber, shingles, and laths, and is largely used 

 in construction and cabinet-making, for the interior finish of buildings, in the manufacture of matches 

 and woodenware, for the masts and spars of vessels, and for many domestic purposes. 6 The bark of the 



1 Brunet, Cat. Veg. Lig. Can. 57. — Bell, Rep. Geolog. Surv. Can. where it was noticed in 1894 by Mr. S. R. Fitz, whose specimens 

 1879-80, 49°. — Macoun, Cat. Can. PL 464. from this locality are preserved in the herbarium of the Arnold 



2 Hill, Garden and Forest, iv. 304. Arboretum. 



3 A small indigenous grove of Pinus Strobus occurs at Starving 5 Mayr found that the wood of Pinus Strobus stands at the head 

 Rock near La Salle in La Salle County. of all conifers in the amount of resin, 6.07 per cent., which it 



4 In Iowa Pinus Strobus grows near Davenport on the Mississippi contains (Popular Science Monthly, xxviii. 682). 



River, and is sparingly scattered through the central part of the 6 The so-called pumpkin pine is the close-grained satiny and 



state, at least as far west as Steamboat Rock on the Iowa River, very valuable wood of large trees which have grown to a great 



