1026 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



small resinous flat umbo. Seed ovoid, \ in. long, reddish brown, mottled with 

 black ; wing narrow, i in. long. Cotyledons 7 to 14. 



Varieties 



Several forms with variously coloured foliage or of peculiar habit have arisen in 

 European nurseries. 1 



1. Var. nana, Knight, Syn. Conif. 34(1850). A compact round-headed shrub 

 rarely exceeding 6 ft. in height, with short slender branches, and crowded branchlets ; 

 leaves short, \x.o \\ in. in length. A specimen of this variety planted at Bayfordbury 

 in 1849 is about 15 ft. high. Sargent says that this is perhaps one of the most 

 distinct and beautiful of all the dwarf conifers in cultivation ; and those which Elwes 

 saw at Underley Hall, Westmoreland, the seat of Lord H. Cavendish-Bentinck, 

 confirmed this opinion. 



2. Var. nivea, Booth, ex Knight, loc. cit. Leaves short, and silvery white beneath. 



3. Var. aurea. Leaves yellowish when young. 



4. Var. variegata. Leaves variegated with yellow. 



5. Var. zebrina. Leaves striped with yellow. 



6. Var. monophylla, Tubeuf, Forst. naturw. Zeitschr. vii. 34 (1897). A variety 

 with the needles more or less cohering throughout their length, and forming a single 

 needle. 



7. Beissner also mentions fastigiate and prostrate varieties, which do not seem 

 to be in cultivation in England. 



Distribution 



P. Strobus is the largest of all the conifers indigenous in North America east- 

 ward of the Rocky Mountains ; and its original area of distribution comprises a vast 

 territory in Canada and the northern United States, roughly bounded on the north 

 by the parallel of 50 from south-eastern Manitoba to Newfoundland, and on the 

 south by the parallel of 42 from Iowa to Connecticut ; while it spreads southwards in 

 the Alleghany mountain region from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, through Mary- 

 land, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, to 

 the northern parts of Alabama and Georgia, becoming rarer and confined to high 

 altitudes towards the south. It grows up to about 3500 ft. on the Blue Ridge, but 

 does not there attain anything like the size it does farther north, 60 to 70 ft. high 

 being about the size of the trees which Elwes saw in North Carolina. 



Although still met with throughout this vast region, the original forest has in 

 many parts been cut away, and in some districts, as in New England and eastern 

 Canada, the species only remains in small areas. The great forests, where the pine 

 occurs in commercial quantity, are now confined to Michigan, Minnesota, and Wis- 

 consin in the United States, and to the Ottawa valley, and to the districts bordering 

 Lake Huron and Lake Michigan in Canada. 



1 Sargent, in Garden and Forest, x. 460 (1897), mentions two varieties of American origin growing in the Arnold 

 Arboretum ; one, dwarf with pendulous, nearly prostrate branches ; the other, with short, slender, nearly erect branches, in 

 whorls of three, growing a dense, low, round-topped head. 



