140 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. conifer*. 



with dark orange-colored anthers terminating in orbicular denticulate crests, and are surrounded by 

 involucres of six or eight bracts, those of the outer rank being as long as the others. The pistillate 

 flowers are lateral and whorled, two whorls being often produced on the shoot of the year ; they are 

 raised on short stout peduncles furnished with ovate acute dark chestnut-brown bracts, with broad 

 white scarious margins, and are oblong and about a third of an inch in length, with ovate scales 

 gradually narrowed into long slender slightly spreading tips, and large nearly orbicular bracts. The 

 cones are erect during their first winter, when they are nearly three quarters of an inch long, with light 

 brown scales narrowed into slightly spreading and incurved tips, and on attaining their full size in 

 the following autumn they are ovate-oblong, oblique at the base, sessile, in clusters of three or five or 

 sometimes of seven, from two to three and a half but usually about three inches in length, from an 

 inch and a half to nearly two inches in thickness, and dark orange-green, with lustrous chestnut-brown 

 umbos and spines, later becoming light chestnut-brown and lustrous ; the exposed portions of the scales 

 on the outside of the cone are much thickened, transversely flattened, and produced toward the base 

 into stout mammillate incurved knobs, or sometimes are armed with stout flattened spur-like spines 

 incurved above its middle and recurved toward its apex, and on the inside of the cone are slightly 

 flattened, the small dark umbos being armed with stout or slender straight prickles ; the cones often 

 remain closed for several years and usually persist on the stem and branches during the entire life of 

 the tree, but do not become imbedded in the wood, as their stems stretch and finally separate, leaving 

 them held by the bark to be carried outward with the enlargement of the stem. 1 The seeds are nearly 

 triangular, somewhat roughened and about a quarter of an inch long, with a thin nearly black rugose 

 coat and an embryo with four or five cotyledons. 



Pinus muricata inhabits the California coast from the neighborhood of Fort Bragg in Mendocino 

 County southward, in localities usually widely separated, to Tomales Point north of the Bay of San 

 Francisco, and from Monterey to San Luis Obispo County, growing also in Lower California on 

 Cedros Island 2 and on the coast between Ensanado and San Quintan. 3 Attaining its largest size 

 near the northern limits of its distribution, it is the characteristic Pine-tree of the Mendocino coast, 

 flourishing on steep bluffs and bold headlands in the full sweep of the ocean spray, on sandy plains, 

 which it covers with forests of slender crowded trees, sometimes ascending on the better soil of uplands 

 to elevations of nearly two thousand feet, and growing also on cold clay barrens, which it disputes with 

 Pinus contorta and Ciqyressus Goveniana. On Tomales Point it grows on the most barren soil close 

 to the ocean, and a mile inland forms small groves on the summits of low hills and ridges, or is mingled 

 in more sheltered positions with Live Oaks, the Douglas Spruce, the Umbellularia, and the Madrona, 

 attaining here a height of forty or fifty feet, with a short trunk often two and a half feet in diameter. 



The wood of Pinus muricata is light, very strong, hard, and rather coarse-grained; it is light 

 brown, with thick nearly white sapwood, and contains broad resinous bands of small summer cells, few 

 inconspicuous resin passages, and many thin medullary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely 

 dry wood is 0.4942, a cubic foot weighing 38.80 pounds. 4 In Mendocino County it is occasionally 

 manufactured into lumber. 



Pinus muricata was discovered in 1831 by Dr. Thomas Coulter, in the neighborhood of San Luis 

 Obispo, about thirty miles from the coast and nearly three thousand feet above the level of the sea, 

 and in 1846 was introduced by Karl Theodor Hartweg into the gardens of Europe, where it is still 

 occasionally cultivated, 5 its handsome compact head of dark foliage and its abundant cones making it 

 a desirable feature for the parks and gardens of temperate regions. 



1 Lemmon, Erythea, ii. 160. the American Museum of Natural History, New York, is fifteen 



* Greene, Pittonia, i. 197, 207. and one half inches in diameter inside the bark, and seventy-six 



■' In 1889 Pinus muricata was found by Mr. A. W. Anthony on years old, with twenty-seven layers of sapwood which is three and 



the coast of Lower California. a quarter inches thick 



4 Pinus muricata grows rapidly even on barren soil. The log s Fowler, Gard. Chron. 1872, 1164 



specimen in the Jesup Collection of North American Woods, in 



