60 SUVA OF NORTH AMERICA. conifers. 



which are borne in short crowded spikes, are oval and about half an inch in length, with dark orange- 

 red anthers terminating in short irregularly denticulate crests, and are surrounded by four involucral 

 bracts. The pistillate flowers are subterminal, oblong-oval, and nearly half an inch long, with dark 

 purple ovate acute pointed scales, and are raised on stout peduncles from one half to three quarters of 

 an inch in length and covered by thin light chestnut-brown ovate acute bracts. In the autumn the 

 young cones are erect, dark purple, and from three quarters of an inch to nearly an inch in length ; 

 they become horizontal the following spring, and, growing rapidly, are soon pendulous, and when fully 

 grown at midsummer they are subcylindrieal, from three and a half to five inches long, from an inch 

 and a half to an inch and three quarters wide, and dark purple, with elongated narrow slightly concave 

 scales rounded at the apex, the much thickened exposed parts being conspicuously transversely keeled 

 and terminating in oblong dark concave umbos furnished with slender minute incurved spines ; 

 after opening, the scales, with the exception of the umbos, turn dull red-brown or mahogany color. 

 The seeds are full and rounded above, acute and compressed at the base, pale and conspicuously 

 mottled with dark purple, and nearly a third of an inch in length, with a thin crustaceous coat and an 

 embryo with five cotyledons ; their wings are gradually narrowed and oblique at the apex, pale, an inch 

 long, and about a quarter of an inch wide. 



Pinus Balfouriana, which grows always on rocky mountain slopes and ridges, inhabits Scott 

 Mountain directly west of Mt. Shasta in Siskiyou County, California, where, below scattered groves 

 of P'ums albicaulis, it forms an open forest at elevations between five and eight thousand feet above 

 the sea-level ; it occurs near the timber line on the mountains at the head of the Sacramento River, on 

 Yolo Bally * and on the southern Sierra Nevada along the slopes of Mt. Whitney and about the head- 

 waters of King's, Kaweah, and Kern Rivers, where, either alone or mixed below with Pinus contorta, 

 var. Murrai/ana, and above with Pinus monticola, it sometimes makes extensive open groves at eleva- 

 tions between nine thousand and eleven thousand five hundred feet, growing here to its largest size, 

 but on the upper borders of the forest, where it is usually the only species, sometimes reduced to a low 

 shrub. 



The wood of Pinus Balfouriana is light, soft, close-grained, weak and brittle, with a satiny 

 surface susceptible of receiving a good polish. It contains narrow dark-colored bands of small summer 

 cells, few inconspicuous resin passages, and numerous obscure medullary rays. The specific gravity of 

 the absolutely dry wood is 0.5434, a cubic foot weighing 33.86 pounds. 



Pinus Balfouriana was introduced into Scotch gardens in 1852 by its discoverer, John Jeffrey, 

 who found it in that year on Scott Mountain, but, like many other alpine trees, it grows very slowly 

 at the sea-level, and, although hardy in Great Britain, gives no promise of attaining beauty or size. 2 



In its specific name this tree commemorates John Hutton Balfour. 3 



1 Pinus Balfouriana was found by Mr. T. S. Brandegee on Yolo teacher of botany. He was the author of a Flora of Edinburgh, a 

 Bally, a high peak of the California Coast Range west of Red manual of botany, a class-book of botany, of other text-books which 

 Bluff in latitude 40° 13' north, (Zoi ; , iv. 176). have exerted a wide and lasting influence upon the study of this 



2 Fowler, Gard. Chron. 1872, 973. science in Scotland, and of many papers published in the proceed- 



3 John Hutton Balfour (September 15, 1808-February 11, 1884) ings of learned societies. He greatly improved and enlarged the 

 was born and died in Edinburgh, where he was long a prominent garden under his charge, which, during his administration, became 

 member of the medical faculty of the University. In 1841 he sue- one of the chief horticultural and botanical centres of Europe ; and 

 ceeded Dr. Hooker in the chair of botany at Glasgow, but four as secretary of the association which sent Jeffrey to America, he 

 years later returned to Edinburgh as professor of botany in the was largely instrumental in the discovery and cultivation of several 

 University and Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden, and North American trees. Balfourodendron, a tree of southern Brazil 

 continued to fill these positions until nearly the end of his life. In of the Rue family, was dedicated to Professor Balfour by Joaquim 

 1836 Professor Balfour was one of the founders of the Botanical Correa de Mello. 



Society of Edinburgh, and for years he was a most successful 



