Pinus Sylvestris 573 



The following varieties, occurring in the wild state, have been distinguished, 

 though they are not so clearly defined in nature, as they seem to be from their 

 description. 



1. Yar. genuina, Heer. Cones usually solitary, long-stalked, symmetrical, acute 

 at the apex ; apophysis flat or convex, not hooked. Needles about 2 inches long, 

 persistent three years. 



This is the common pine, growing on good soil in Germany, Southern 

 Scandinavia, Poland, and North-Western Russia. Two races have been distinguished 

 on the Continent in cultivation : 



{a) rigensis [Pinus rigensis, Desf.). Riga pine, raised from seeds collected near 

 Riga. At Les Barres, this is the best race of P. sylvestris, the stem being very 

 straight and cylindrical, rising to a great height, and with few lateral branches ; bark 

 very red, stripping off above in very thin papery scales. Von Sievers states that the 

 form native to the Baltic provinces of Russia is superior in growth and timber to 

 that introduced there by seed from Germany. Willkomm, however, is of opinion 

 that the so-called Riga pine is only a fine tall-growing form, and occurs in North 

 Germany and Poland, as well as in Russia. 



{b) Haguenensis, Loudon. Haguenau pine, raised from seed obtained in the 

 forest of Haguenau in Alsace. At Les Barres, this form, though vigorous in growth, 

 is defective, on account of its tendency to form numerous irregular branches, so that 

 the stem is not so clean and does not reach the same height as the Riga variety. 

 The bark is not so red, and is not so fine-scaled as in that variety. 



Two trees of the Haguenau variety, raised from seed, procured by Loudon in 

 1828, are growing at Seggieden in Perthshire, and are now about 65 feet high by 

 8 feet in girth. According to the forester, they are distinguishable in bark, buds, 

 shoots, and leaves from the Scots pine growing near them. 



2. Var. scotica. This variety, which grows wild in the Highlands of Scotland, 

 differs in the redder bark of the stem ; in the shorter more glaucous leaves (i^inch 

 long), often persistent four years; and in the shorter cones {\\ inch long), which 

 are symmetrical, with apophyses usually flat near the base, tending to be pyramidal 

 in the upper part of the cone. 



3. Var. engadinensis, Heer. Bark reddish ; needles short, i to i^^. inch long, 

 thick and stiff, persistent for five years ; buds resinous. Cones ovoid-conic, 2 inches 

 long, oblique at the base ; apophyses convex on the outer side of the cone, umbo 

 large and blunt. A small tree, rarely 30 feet high, growing in the Engadine Alps.^ 

 It is perhaps a hybrid between P. sylvestris and P. montana. 



4. Var, lapponica. Pinus lapponica, Mayr, Fremdliind. Park, ti. Waldb'dume, 348 

 (1906). This variety, which grows in the north of Norway and Sweden and in 

 Finland, is considered by Willkomm and Christ ^ to be identical with var. 

 engadinensis, with which it agrees in the short, straight stiff leaves, persistent for 



I Dr. Christ, in Flore de la Suisse, 197, and Szippl. 31 (1907), considers the Engadine pine to be precisely the same as 

 specimens he examined, which were collected at Quickjock in Lapland (lat. 67). He also mentions (p. 285) a curious form 

 of the common pine, slender and tall in habit, with very short green needles, which grows at Flims in Switzerland, and also 

 in one or two places In Silesia. 



