57^ The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



and the Seja territory to the Upper Amur. According to Komarov,' it is a scarce 

 tree on the banks of rivers in Manchuria. Its southerly limit in Siberia is not well 

 known ; but it is known to occur in the mountains of Dahuria, in the territory around 

 Lake Baikal, and in the Altai Mountains. Its southern limit in European Russia is 

 a very irregular line, which begins in the Ural south of Orenburg at about lat. 52, is 

 most to the north in the government of Tula (lat. 54 30'), and descends from there 

 to Kharkof (lat. 49), passing into Galicia about lat. 50". Far south of this line, and 

 separated from it by the Russian Steppes, on which no pine trees grow, occurs an 

 area of distribution, not yet well made out, which includes the Caucasus, the 

 mountains of the Crimea, Asia Minor,^ and North-Western Persia. There is also an 

 isolated area, in which the pine is found growing wild, in Macedonia, on Mount 

 Nidje. From Galicia the southern limit in Europe (exclusive of the last-mentioned 

 area) passes southwards to the Transylvanian Alps ; thence it extends along the 

 mountains to Servia, where the tree grows on the Kopavnik mountain (about lat. 43), 

 continues through the mountains of Bosnia, Dalmatia, Illyria, Venetia, and through 

 Lombardy to the Ligurian Apennines (about lat. 44). It passes into France, across 

 the Maritime Alps, into the Cevennes, and reaches the Eastern Pyrenees ; in Spain 

 it descends through the mountains of Catalonia, Aragon, and Valencia to the Sierra 

 Nevada in Andalusia, which is its extreme southerly point in Europe (lat. 37). 

 The westerly limit beginning here, stretches north-west through the mountains of 

 Avila to those of Leon in North Spain ; and is continued through the mountains of 

 Scotland to the north-west coast of Norway. 



In this vast area the pine is very irregularly distributed. The largest forests 

 occur in the Baltic provinces of Russia, in Scandinavia, in Northern Germany, and 

 in Poland. Towards the south it only occurs in mountains, and rarely forms pure 

 forests of considerable extent. According to Huffel,' it is rare in Roumania, where 

 he saw it at the confluence of the Lotru and Oltu rivers at 1 700 feet altitude, and in 

 the valley of Bistritza.* 



In the British Isles, the common pine is found wild at the present day only in 

 the Highlands of Scotland, where a few forests still remain. These occur in the 

 valley of the Spey at Rothiemurchus, Duthill, Abernethy, and Glenmore, and in the 

 valley of the Dee at Invercauld, Braemar, and Glen Tanar. There is also a fine wild 

 forest, the " Black Wood," on the south side of Loch Rannoch in Perthshire.* That 

 of Ballochbuie near Invercauld is probably the finest now existing. 



The pine was widely spread over the British Isles in ancient times, as is 

 evidenced by the occurrence of remains of logs, stumps of trees, and cones in the 



' Flora Manshutia, i. 175 (1 90 1). 



2 Pinus sylvestris grows on the Armenian plateau, and has been described in Linntra, xxii. 296 (1849), as P. armena, 

 Koch; P. Kochiana, Klotzsch ; and P. pontica, Koch. Cf. Monitetir Jardin Botanique Tiflis., ii. 26 (1906). 



^ Fortts de la Roumanie, 6 (1890). 



* M. B. Golesco, in an article on the forests of Roumania, in Bull. Soc. Dendr. France, i. 171 (1907), states that in the 

 Muscel district P. sylvestris is only found on calcareous soils ; and in a letter to Elwes confirms this statement, adding that it 

 attains a diameter of one metre, and does not grow on the adjoining schist. 



'' Buchanan White, Flora of Perthshire, 282 (189S), gives as additional localities for wild trees in Perthshire, Breadalbane, 

 in Glen Lyon and near Killin and Tyndrum ; and mentions one or two other places where the pine is doubtfully native. 

 According to the Rev. E. G. Marshall, _/(;/7i. Bot. xliv. 160 (1906), it is certainly native in the forest of Glenavon, but quite 

 scarce, and the seedlings appear to be destroyed by deer browsing on them. 



