PINUS PEUKE. 357 



Pinus Peuke. 



A low or medium-sized tree, 30 45 feet high, with a, trunk rarely 

 exceeding a foot in diameter at its greatest development ; reduced to 

 a small hush or shruh at its highest vertical limit. Branches relatively 

 short and spreading horizontally, except the uppermost which are more 

 or less ascending. Branches numerous, slender, the herbaceous shoots 

 glaucous green, and destitute of leaves near the,, base. Buds elongate, 

 ovoid-conic, with lanceolate, acuminate perulae, reflexed at the tip. 

 Leaves quinate, persistent three four years, filiform, triquetrous with 

 minutely serrulate margins, 3 4 inches long, dark green on the convex 

 dorsal side, greyish on the flat, ventral sides ; basal sheath O75 inch 

 long, whitish brown, deciduous. Staminate flowers in dense clusters 

 around the apical half of shoots of the preceding year, cylindric, 

 0*5 inch long, yellowish brown ; involucral bracts relatively large, 

 broadly ovate. Cones sub-cylindric, obtuse, 4 5 inches long ; scales 

 broadly cuneate with a small protuberance at the apex. Seeds with 

 an oblong wing. 



Finns Peuke, Grisebach, Spicileg. Flor. Rumel. II. 349 (1844). Endlicher, 

 Synops. Conif. 144. Carriere, Traite Conif. ed. II. 394. Gordon, Pinet ed. II. 318. 

 Boissier, Fl. orient. V. 698 (1884). Masters in Gard. Chron. XIX. (1883), p. 244, 

 with figs. ; Jonrn. Linn. Soc. XXII. 205, with tig. ; and Journ. R. Hort. Soc. XIV. 237. 



P. excelsa, Hooker til in Jonrn. Linn. Soc. VIII. 145. Parlatore, D. C. Prodr. 

 XVI. 405 (in part). 



P. excelsa var. Peuke, Beissner, Nadelholzk. 286. 



Pinus Peuke inhabits the alpine and gub-alpine regions of Macedonia 

 and western Kournelia, at elevations ranging from 2,500 to 6,000 feet. 

 It is a curious fact in the botanical history of this Pine that its 

 presence in the Balkan peninsula was not known or even suspected 

 prior to its discovery by the eminent German botanist, Grisebach,* 

 on Mount Peristeri, near Bitolia, during his journey through the 

 Turkish province of Eoumelia in 1839. On account of its resemblance 

 in habit to the Arolla of the Alps, Pinus Cembra, Grisebach at first 

 referred it to that species, but subsequently gave it the name it now 

 bears, which is literally the Greek Tj-ti/o/, the Pine tree. Nothing 

 more was heard of it for many years afterwards till the well-known 

 Erfurt seed firm of Haage and Schmidt received seeds in 1864 from 

 a former Curator of the Botanic Garden at Athens, who had collected 

 them in the same locality in which the tree had been originally 

 discovered by Grisebach. Since then P. Peuke has been found on 

 Mount Perindagh and on the Kom mountains, forming the eastern 

 frontier of Montenegro. 



In Great Britain Pinus Peuke is a useful ornamental tree ; its 

 growth is comparatively slow, but it is quite hardy over the greater part 

 of the country ; it forms a strictly pyramidal tree, clothed with bright 

 green foliage, and' taking but little room, it is especially suitable for 



* Grisebach is best known to English readers as the author of ' ' Die Vegetation der Erde 

 nach ihrer klimatischen Anordnnng," an elaborate work on' geographical botany, and by 

 far the most important of its kind at the date of publication (1872), and for some years 

 afterwards. 



