PINUS. 217 



The Name of this grand and useful genus is the ancient 

 Latin term Pinus, from the Celtic pin or pen, a rock or 

 mountain. The White Pine, that species to which our 

 figures chiefly refer, is Pinus Strobus the "Weymouth 

 Pine " of the English parks. This is the tallest of all our 

 forest trees, many with a diameter of 4 or 5 feet, rising to 

 100 and 140 feet. The trunks perfectly straight, erect, free 

 from limbs, extend f their whole height, affording a strong, 

 soft, light, and durable timber, more extensively used in 

 architecture than any other kind. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTER. The ffioot of P. Strobus pene- 

 trates the soil but 2 or 3 feet, and is quickly dissolved into 

 irregular branches and branchlets, filling a space of 30 to 40 

 feet diameter.* 



The 2*runfc is cylindric, erect, with a smooth bark in trees 

 less than a foot in diameter and in old forest trees regularly 

 broken into long narrow plates. The branches are given off 

 in whorls and at nearly right angles, one new whorl each 

 year. In forests, all but the upper branches soon perish, 

 and these stretching out over the other trees render the 

 Pines conspicuous in the distant landscape. 



The leaves are in fascicles of 5s, and 4' in length. 



The Cones, nearly 6' long when ripe, have scales slightly 

 if at all thickened at their edges, thus quite unlike the other 

 Pines. Compare this with 



P. rigida, the Pitch Pine, which has its leaves in 3s, cones 

 ovoid, with scales thick-edged and clawed at the end, and 

 bark rough and black, a tree 30 or more feet high. 



P. resinosa, Red Pine, has leaves in 2s, cones ovoid-conical, 



* The roots of the White Pine are almost incorruptible. In clearing up new lands 

 where the Pines have been felled or blown down, the stumps with their roots are 

 often taken up and used in making a fence, by setting the under surface of the roots 

 to form the outer or the finished side. Fences so made exhibit, after a hundred 

 years, few signs of decay. Emerson. 

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