68 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. conifers. 



the anthers open. The pistillate flowers are terminal, subglobose, and about a quarter of an inch long, 

 with broadly ovate scarlet scales rounded and reflexed at the apex, and are raised on short stout 

 peduncles covered by acute chestnut-brown bracts. During their first winter the cones are ovate, erect, 

 about half an inch in length and a quarter of an inch in thickness, and light red-brown ; they begin 

 to grow in May and June with the appearance of the new leaves and soon become horizontal, and when 

 fully grown, at midsummer, they are ovate-conical, subsessile, bright green, and from two inches to 

 two inches and a quarter long, with thin slightly concave scales rounded at the apex, the apophyses, 

 which are conspicuously transversely keeled and slightly thickened, terminating in narrow transverse 

 four-sided dark chestnut-brown unarmed umbos ; they ripen and shed their seeds early in the autumn, 

 when the exposed portions become light chestnut-brown and lustrous and the remainder dark dull 

 purple, and mostly fall during the following spring or summer, but sometimes stay on the branches 

 until another winter. The seeds are oval, compressed, about an eighth of an inch long, dark chestnut- 

 brown and more or less mottled, with a thin crustaceous coat and from six to eight cotyledons ; their 

 wings are broadest below the middle, oblique at the apex, thin, light brown, three quarters of an inch 

 in length and from one quarter to one third of an inch in breadth. 



Pinus resinosa, the only American representative of a peculiar Old World group of Pine-trees of 

 which Pinus sylvestris is the best known, grows on light sandy loam or dry rocky ridges, usually 

 forming groves rarely more than a few hundred acres in extent scattered through forests of other Pines 

 and of deciduous-leaved trees. It is distributed from Nova Scotia, where it abounds on the broad sandy 

 plains near Kingston, and New Brunswick, where it is common, to the upper valley of the Patapedia 

 River in eastern Quebec and to Lake St. John in latitude 48° north, ,and westward through Quebec and 

 central Ontario, where it is widely dispersed over sandy plains, to the shores of the Lake of the Woods 

 and the valley of the Winnipeg River, being comparatively rare and growing only in small isolated 

 groves west of central Ontario ; * it is common in northern New England and New York, and ranges 

 southward with small scattered colonies to eastern Massachusetts, where there are isolated groves in 

 B oxford, Essex County, 2 and in Chestnut Hill, Middlesex County, with occasional trees in the neigh- 

 boring towns, to the mountains of Pennsylvania, and to central Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, 

 being most abundant and growing to its largest size in the northern parts of these three states, and 

 producing here on dry gravelly ridges harder and stronger timber than any other tree of the region. 3 



The wood of Pinus resinosa is light, hard, and rather close-grained ; it is pale red, with thin 

 yellow or often nearly white sapwood, and contains broad dark-colored very resinous bands of small 

 summer cells, few resin passages, and many thin inconspicuous medullary rays. The specific gravity 

 of the absolutely dry wood is 0.4854, a cubic foot weighing 30.25 pounds. It is largely used in the 

 construction of bridges and buildings, and for piles, masts, and spars, and is exported from Canada to 

 Great Britain in considerable quantities. 4 The bark contains enough tannin to make it commercially 

 valuable, and formerly it was occasionally used for tanning leather. 5 



The earliest description of Pinus resinosa was published by Duhamel 6 in 1755, and it was 

 cultivated in England the following year. 7 In cultivation the Red Pine grows very rapidly, and its 

 hardiness, its picturesque habit, and its long dark green leaves, make it the most desirable of all the 

 Pitch Pines which flourish in the northern states for the decoration of their parks. 8 



1 Brunet, Cat. Veg. Lig. Can. 56. — Bell, Geolog. Rep. Can. 6 Kalm, Travels, English ed. iii. 218. — Bastin & Trimble, Am. 

 1879-80, 50°. — Macoun, Cat. Can. PL 465. Jour. Pharm. xvi. 321, f. 28, 29. 



2 John Robinson, Bull. Essex Institute, xi. 103 ( Woody Plants of 6 Pinus Canadensis bifolia, conis mediis ovatis, Pin Rouge de 

 Essex County, Massachusetts). Canada, Traite des Arbres, ii. 125. 



8 Ayres, Garden and Forest, i. 106. i Loudon, Arb. Brit. iv. 2210, f. 2094-2097. 



* Laslett, Timber and Timber-Trees, ed. 2, 350. 8 Sargent, Rep. Sec. Board Agric. Mass. xxv. 267. 



