PINUS MONTANA. 343 



which it soon covers with healthy forests, and seems destined to play 

 an important part in restoring fertility to the lands of those States, 

 and in supplying new crops of valuable timber. 



Whatever may be its value and destiny in America, very little can 

 be said in its favour on this side of the Atlantic. It is not known 

 when it was introduced into Great Britain, but it was in cultivation 

 in 1739 and perhaps earlier ; it has rarely, if ever, been seen to 

 thrive for long in this country, and old trees have become exceedingly 

 rare. The nearest affinities of Pinus i nitis are P. inops and P. rigida, 

 between which it may be said to form a connecting link. Young 

 plants of P. mitis and P. inops are scarcely distinguishable ; the 

 herbaceous shoots of P. initis are sometimes violet tinted like those 

 of P. inops, sometimes green like those of P. rigida ; the leaves 

 .are frequently in fascicles of three as in P. rigida, and like that 

 Pine short branchlets are sometimes produced from the stem and older 

 parts of the branches. 



Pinus montana. 



Usually a prostrate or semi-prostrate shrub with crooked or gnarled 

 stems and branches, the former 6 9 or more inches in diameter, and 

 covered with dark brown bark ; sometimes a low tree of pyramidal 

 outline and spreading branches, a habit which it retains in old age. 

 Braiichlets short with pale brown bark, corrugated with short cortical 

 outgrowths below the bases of the leaf fascicles. Buds sub-cylindric, 

 about 0*5 inch long, with reddish brown perulss usually coated with 

 a film of whitish resin. Leaves geminate, persistent four five years, 

 rigid, often more or less twisted, mucronate, 2 2*5 inches long, dull 

 green ; basal sheath about O5 inch long, much wrinkled, and blackish 

 the second year. Staminate flowers crowded in a short spike ; anthers 

 pale yellowish brown with an orbicular toothed connective. Cones 

 sessile or shortly stalked, solitary or two and three together, variable 

 in size and shape, those produced in Great Britain ovoid, obtuse, 

 1-25 1*5 inch long ; scales obovate-oblong, the thickened exposed apex 

 rhomboidal with a transverse ridge and prominent central umbo. 



Pinus montana, Miller, Diet. ed. VIII. No. 5 (1768). Parlatore, D. C. Prodr. 

 XVI. 386. Willkomm, Forstl. Fl. ed. II. 209. Kent in Veitch's Manual, ed. I. 151. 

 Beissner, Nadelholzk. 233. Masters in Journ. R. Hort. Soc. XIV. 234. 



P. Pumilio, Haenke, Reise ims Riesengebirge, 68 (1791). Lambert, Genus 

 Pinus, I. t. 2 (1803). London, Arb. et Frut. Brit. IV. 2186, with figs. Forbes, 

 Pinet. Woburn, I. t. 1. Endlicher, Synops. Conif. 169. Carriere, Traite Conif. 

 ed. II. 478. 



P. Mughiis, Wildenow, Baumz. 205 (1805). Forbes, Pinet. Woburn, 4, 1. 2. 

 Gordon, Pinet. ed. II. 244 (Mugho). P. pumilio Mughus, London, Arb. et Frut. 

 ' Brit. IV. 2187, with figs. 



P. uncinata, Ramond in D. C. Flor. Franc. III. 726 (1805). Cook-Widdrington, 

 Travels in Spain, II. 236. Endlicher, Synops. Conif. 170. 



P. humilis, Link in Abliandl. Berl. Akad. 171 (1827). Kerner in Nat. Hist. 

 Pi. I. 549 (Oliver's Translation). And many others.* 



Eng. Mountain Pine. Fr. Pin nain. Germ. Bergkiefer, Krummholzkiefer, Zwerg- 

 kiefer. Ital. Pino dei Monti. 



* The number of literary references to this Pine is unusually great. Very many of them 

 occur in local Floras, either as a description of the species, or a nomen nudutn only. In 

 both cases the Mountain Pine is designated under a bewildering multiplicity of names. 



