CONIFERS, OR CONE-BEARING TREES. 277 



color. Cones small, an inch to an inch and a quarter long, and 

 three-fourths of an inch in diameter, dark-mahogany color ; 

 scales thin, with a triangular point, and a very minute prickle. 

 A dwarfish tree or shrub with numerous ascending or widely- 

 spreading branches. Quite a variable species when I'aised fi'ora 

 seed, some plants assuming an erect habit, others spreading and 

 dwarfish. My oldest specimen, twenty-five years from seed, is 

 eight feet high and about ten feet in diameter. 



P. pyronaita, La Peyrouse. — Pyrenean Pine. — Leaves two in a 

 sheath, and from four to seven inches long, usually crowded in 

 tufts at the extremities of the branchlets. The color of the 

 bark on the young growth is a bright orange color, an excellent 

 character by which the species may be distinguished in sum- 

 mer. Cones two to three inches long, and about an inch and a 

 quarter in diameter at the broadest part ; scales usually with- 

 out prickles. A large tree growing sixty to eighty feet high, 

 and native of the forests of Southern France and Spain, in the 

 Pyrenees, mostly on the Spanish side. 



P. sylvestiis, Linn. — Scotch Pine. — Leaves in twos, from an 

 inch and a half to two and a half long, twisted, quite rigid, and 

 of a glaucous-green color, or what is sometimes called a gray- 

 ish-green. Cones two to three inches long, of a grayish-brown 

 color, with a quadrangular recurved poiat. Cones ripen 

 the second year, but do not usually open untU the following 

 spring. An old and well known tree, inhabiting the colder 

 regions of Central EurOi)e, especially in the Tyrolian, Swiss, 

 and Vosgian Mountains. In Europe the economic value of this 

 tree is said to be unsurpassed by any other tree known, but the 

 wood is not equal to our White or Southern-yellow Pine, 

 although it is employed for similar purposes. There are a large 

 number of varieties of the Scotch Pine, principally cultivated 

 in Europe as ornamental trees. 



