PINUS PONDEROSA. 363 



the largest specimen in the Royal Gardens at Kew, the other a 

 characteristic tree 35 feet high at Glenthorne in north Devon ; a still 

 finer and taller specimen and certainly the most imposing yet seen by 

 the author, is standing in the Trinity College Botanic Garden, Dublin ; 

 and there is one at Powerscourt, and another at Charleville in Co. 

 Wicklow worthy of mention. 



The extremely picturesque appearance of the Stone Pine in its 

 maturity, has caused it to be much planted in public and private 

 gardens in the south of Europe, and especially in Italy, from a very 

 early period. In the neighbourhood of Rome are many fine and 

 venerable specimens from 70 to 75 feet high, which always attract the 

 attention of visitors. Artists have frequently availed themselves of its 

 peculiar and striking form to give it a prominent place in the 

 foreground of their pictures ; and thus we often find it associated with 

 porticos, Ionic pillars, fragments of old temples, and other classic 

 objects in the Italian landscape. 



Many varieties of Pinus pinea have been noted and described, but 

 none of them are available for the British Arboretum from the same 

 cause that renders the common form so unsatisfactory a tree. One 

 named frac/ilis should be noticed as it differs in the testa or shell of 

 the seeds being so thin as to be easily broken by the fingers. The 

 edible seeds are much used for food by the peasantry throughout the 

 region in which this tree abounds. The wood is whitish, moderately 

 resinous, and very light ; it is used in Italy and the south of France 

 for joinery and other constructive work. 



A peculiarity in Pinus pinea, not observed in any other species of 

 Pinus, may be here noted : For several years after the seedling state 

 is passed and branchlets with adult foliage are produced, there are also 

 produced among them slender elongated branchlets with protomorphic 

 leaves only ; these leaves are solitary, not geminate like the ordinary leaves, 

 nor more than one-half of their length ; they are without basal sheath, 

 compressed, sharply angular laterally, and of a bluish glaucous green (see 

 page 22). As the young tree advances in age, shoots are produced 

 with protomorphic and adult leaves intermixed ; but eventually the 

 former disappear entirely. 



Pinus ponderosa. 



One of the largest of Pines ; in California and Oregon the trunk 

 often 100 150 feet high and 5 6 feet in diameter, exceptionally 

 large trees 225 feet high and 8 feet in. diameter ; throughout the 

 Rocky Mountains region much less. In Great Britain the trunks of 

 the oldest trees are thick in proportion to height, with rugged bark 

 deeply fissured into irregular plates. Branches spreading, frequently 

 curved or tortuous ; branchlets stoutish, the bark furrowed spirally, 

 following the arrangement of the leaf fascicles. Buds sub-cylindric, 

 abruptly tapering to an acute point, 0'75 1 inch long ; perulse linear- 

 lanceolate, with iimbriated margins. Leaves ternate, persistent 

 three four years, produced on the distal half of the season's growth, 

 and at first parallel with it, afterwards spreading and slightly twisted, 

 6 12 inches long, rigid, triquetral, mucronate with mirmtely serrulate 

 margins, dull dark green ; basal sheath about an inch long, pale brown ; 



