72 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. conifers. 



from two to two and a half inches long and about a third of an inch thick, with yellow anthers 

 terminating in prominent denticulate crests, and are surrounded by involucres of fourteen broadly 

 ovate acute chestnut-brown bracts. The pistillate flowers are oblong-oval, three quarters of an inch in 

 length and about half an inch in width, with broadly ovate scales gradually narrowed into short 

 points. The young cones grow slowly and remain erect during their first season, and at the end of 

 the first year they are subglobose and about half an inch thick ; they enlarge more rapidly during 

 their second year, and when two years old they are ovate, from two and a half to three inches long, 

 and dark chestnut-brown, with thickened pointed incurved light red-brown scales, and are raised on 

 stout peduncles perpendicular to the branch and from an inch to an inch and a half in length ; and at 

 the end of the next season, when they are fully grown and open and discharge most of their seeds, 

 they are broadly ovate, spreading or deflexed on stout peduncles, from four to six inches long, from 

 three and a half to nearly five inches broad, and chocolate brown, with thick cone-scales almost an 

 inch wide and short-pointed at the apex, the exposed portions being conspicuously four-angled and 

 much thickened into central knobs terminating in short stout straight or elongated and reflexed umbos 

 tipped by minute spines. The seeds are oval, more or less angled, from three quarters of an inch 

 to nearly an inch in length, dull brown and mottled on the lower side and light yellow-brown on the 

 upper side, with a hard shell about a sixteenth of an inch thick, sweet oily albumen, and an embryo 

 with thirteen or fourteen cotyledons; they are nearly inclosed by the much thickened inner rim of 

 the dark brown wings which extend beyond them from one third to nearly one half of an inch; 

 during their fourth season the cones, which still contain some of the seeds, usually fall, generally leaving 

 a few of their undeveloped scales on the peduncle attached to the branch. 



Pinus Torreyana, which is the least widely distributed Pine-tree of the United States, grows in 

 southern California near the mouth of the Soledad River, where it is scattered along the coast for a 

 distance of eight miles, ranging inland only about a mile and a half, 1 and on the island of Santa Rosa, 

 one of the Santa Barbara group. 2 



The wood of Pinus Torreyana is light, soft, not strong, brittle, and coarse-grained ; it is light 

 red, with thick yellow or nearly white sapwood, and contains broad conspicuous resinous bands of small 

 summer cells, small resin passages, and numerous obscure medullary rays. The specific gravity of the 

 absolutely dry wood is 0.4875, a cubic foot weighing 30.41 pounds. It is sometimes used for fuel. 

 The large edible seeds are gathered in considerable quantities and eaten raw or roasted. 3 



Pinus Torreyana was first made known to science in 1850 by Dr. C. C. Parry, who named it for 

 Dr. John Torrey. 4 It was introduced into European gardens many years ago; but little is known of its 

 value as an ornamental plant. 



1 The most northern specimen of Pinus Torreyana on the main- constantly springing up near the older groves show that Pinus 

 land is isolated on a high mesa about a mile and a half from the Torreyana is unimpaired in vitality and likely to survive in the 

 coast and three miles to the north and a little to the east of the well protected ravines into which it has probably been driven by a 

 post-office of Del Mar. The most northerly grove is on the south gradual change of climate or by fires on the dry mesas, 

 bank of the San Diequito River, a mile north of Del Mar, where - In June, 1888, Mr. T. S. Brandegee found a grove of about 

 there are several fine trees, the tallest being about sixty feet high. one hundred trees on a bluff five hundred feet above the sea at the 

 From this point southward, and never more than a mile from the east end of Santa Rosa Island. The trees of all sizes up to a 

 ocean, stand groups of all sizes and ages on the borders of the height of thirty feet were in perfect health, and the numerous seed- 

 broken mesa, and on the sides of deep ravines or washes extend- lings showed the vitality of the species at this place. (See Bran- 

 ing down from it to the shore, the largest trees growing on rocky degee, Rep. California State Board Forestry, ii. 111.) 

 slopes slightly protected from the sea breezes. From the San Die- 8 Palmer, Am. Nat. xii. 594. 



quito to the mouth of the Soledad there are between two and three 4 John Torrey (August 15, 1796-March 10, 1873) was born and 



hundred trees. South of the Soledad, upon high ground, sometimes educated in New York. He learned in early life the rudiments of 



several hundred feet above the level of the ocean, occur the largest botany from Amos Eaton, and studied mineralogy and chemistry ; 



groups, often of two or three hundred trees, stretching along the in 1815 he began the study of medicine, in 1818 obtaining a medical 



sides of ravines between high points jutting to the ocean, the most degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, 



southerly station being five miles south of Point Pinos, where there and engaged at once in the practice of medicine in his native city. 



are about a dozen trees (Belle S. Angier in litt.). Although now In 1817 he contributed to the Lyceum of Natural History a cata- 



so restricted in its distribution, the number of seedlings which are logue of the plants growing in the neighborhood of New York ; 



