96 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. conifers. 



ducts surrounded with strengthening cells, which also occur under the epidermis, usually in a single 

 layer. 1 The staminate flowers, which are produced in elongated spikes, are oblong and nearly an inch 

 in length, with yellow anthers terminating in semiorbicular dentate crests, and are surrounded by 

 involucres of from ten to fifteen bracts, those of the exterior pair being minute. The pistillate flowers 

 are borne on stout glaucous peduncles which at first spread from the stem and then ascend and 

 bend inward and are from an inch and a half to two inches long and covered by ovate acute light 

 chestnut-brown bracts ; they are oblong-obovate, about half an inch long and a third of an inch thick, 

 with ovate dark purple glaucous scales gradually narrowed into long slender incurved points. The 

 young cones soon become reflexed, and during their first winter and the following spring they are 

 subglobose or oblong, about an inch and a half in length, with pale glaucous much thickened scales, 

 flattened and straight or incurved at the apex, which is furnished with a short stout sharp tip ; and 

 when fully grown in the autumn they are oblong-ovate, full and rounded below, pointed, light red- 

 brown, from six to ten inches long and from four to six inches broad, with thin and slightly concave 

 scales about an inch wide at the rounded apex, their exposed portions being conspicuously trans- 

 versely keeled and narrowed into prominent flattened knobs which are erect or incurved above the 

 middle of the cone, strongly reflexed below, and armed with short sharp hooked spur-like incurved 

 spines ; the cones ripen in the autumn and gradually lose their seeds, often remaining on the branches 

 for several years. The seeds are oblong, full and rounded below, somewhat compressed toward the 

 apex, about three quarters of an inch long and a third of an inch wide, and dark brown or nearly black, 

 with a thick hard coat produced into narrow lateral ridges which are broadest above the middle of the 

 seed, a resinous oily kernel, and an embryo with fifteen or sixteen cotyledons ; they are inclosed by 

 their wings, which are much thickened on the inner rim, obliquely rounded at the broad apex, and 

 about a third of an inch longer than the seeds. 



Pinus Sabiniana, growing singly or in small groups, is scattered over the dry foothills of western 

 California, ranging from about five hundred up to four thousand feet above the sea-level and from the 

 southern slopes of the great cross range which forms the northern barrier of the state southward to 

 the Tehachapi Mountains and the Sierra de la Liebre ; 2 it is most abundant and grows to its largest 

 size on sun-baked slopes in the middle of the state, where at an elevation of about two thousand feet, 

 mixed with Quercus Douglasii and great thickets of Ceanothus and Manzanita, it is often the most 

 conspicuous feature of the vegetation, differing from all other Pines in its habit and in its long pale 

 blue tufted foliage so thin and sparse that the great branches loaded with massive cones stand out in 

 bold relief against the sky. 



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

 it is fight brown or red, with thick yellow or nearly white sapwood and contains broad very resinous 

 conspicuous bands of small summer cells, few large prominent resin passages, and numerous obscure 

 medullary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.4840, a cubic foot weighing 30.16 

 pounds. 3 



Abietene, 4 a hydrocarbon, is obtained by distilling the resinous juices of Pinus Sabiniana. The 



1 Coulter & Rose, Bot. Gazette, xi. 307. odor of oil of oranges. It is an article of commerce in San Fran- 



2 Merriam, North American Fauna, No. 7, 339 (Death Valley cisco, being sold under the name of abietene, evasine, aurantine, 

 Exped. ii.). — Coville, Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. iv. 223 (Bot. and theoline, and used for removing grease spots and other stains 

 Death Valley Exped.). — S. B. Parish, Zoe, iv. 351. from clothing. It has been employed as an insecticide and is 



8 Pinus Sabiniana grows rapidly, especially during its early believed to possess powerful anaesthetic properties, although its 



years. The log specimen in the Jesup Collection of North Ameri- medicinal value has probably been overestimated. (See Wenzell, 



can Woods in the American Museum of Natural History, New Am. Jour. Pharm. xliv. 97 [Abietene, a New Hydrocarbon]. — Sadt- 



York, is twenty-three inches in diameter inside the bark, with fifty- ler, Am. Jour. Pharm. Ii. 96, 293. — Thorpe, Jour. Chem. Soc. 



one layers of annual growth, the sapwood being three and three xxxv. 296 [On Heptane from Pinus Sabiniana'] ; Dictionary of Ap- 



quarters inches thick and twenty-two years old. plied Chemistry, i. 2.— Thorpe & Schorlemer, Jour. Chem. Soc. 



4 Abietene is a nearly colorless mobile aromatic liquid with the xxxviii. 213. — Trimble, Garden and Forest, x. 202.) 



