44 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. conifers. 



concave scales rounded at the apex; their exposed portion is thickened, conspicuously keeled trans- 

 versely, narrowed into a central elevated knob terminating' in a truncate or concave umbo armed with 

 a minute recurved tip, and bright chestnut-brown and lustrous, while the rest of the scale is dull red ; 

 a few only of the central scales are fertile ; the others gradually decrease in size toward both ends of 

 the cone, and those at its base, being much reflexed and remaining closed, form a broad flat base. The 

 seeds are somewhat narrowed and compressed at the apex, full and rounded at the base, about five eighths 

 of an inch long and one third of an inch wide, dark red-brown and more or less mottled, with a thin 

 brittle shell and a sweet slightly resinous albumen ; their wings are thin, pale chestnut-brown, about an 

 eighth of an inch wide, and remain attached to the scales after the seeds fall ; the cotyledons are usually 

 eight in number. 



Pinus quadrifolia forms open forests on the arid mesas and low mountain slopes of Lower 

 California, 1 extending southward to the foothills of Mt. San Pedro Martir, 2 on which it is almost the 

 only tree, and northward into California, where only a few specimens have been found. 3 



The wood of Pinus quadrifolia is light, soft, and close-grained ; it is pale brown or yellow, with 

 much lighter colored nearly white sapwood, and contains thin bands of small summer cells, many large 

 conspicuous resin passages, and numerous obscure medullary rays. The specific gravity of the 

 absolutely dry wood is 0.5675, a cubic foot weighing 35.37 pounds. 4 The seeds are eaten raw or are 

 roasted, and form an important article of food for the Indians of Lower California. 



Pinus quadrifolia was discovered in June, 1850, by Dr. C. C. Parry, 5 one of the botanists of the 

 commission appointed to establish the boundary between the United States and Mexico, sixty miles 

 southeast of San Diego, California, at an elevation of about two thousand feet above the sea-level. It 

 is occasionally cultivated in the gardens of California. 



1 From near the boundary line of the United States an open Mr. Carl Purdy reports it from the neighborhood of Julian at 

 forest of Pinus quadrifolia about thirty miles wide extends south- the head of the San Diego River. 



ward for nearly fifty miles, covering, at elevations varying from 4 Pinus quadrifolia probably grows very slowly. The log speci- 



three thousand five hundred to seven thousand feet above the men in the Jesup Collection of North American Woods in the 



sea-level, the wide table-lands which here form the backbone of American Museum of Natural History, New York, is twelve and 



the peninsula. (See Orcutt, Garden and Forest, v. 183.) one half inches in diameter inside the bark and one hundred and 



2 T. S. Brandegee, Zoe, iv. 201. sixty years old, the sapwood being an inch and a half in thickness 



3 Pinus quadrifolia was found by Mr. George R. Vasey in June, and containing forty-eight layers. 

 1880, near Larkin Station, San Diego County, twenty miles south- 5 See vii. 130. 



east of Campo, not far from the Mexican boundary line ; and 



