302 PINUS, OR 



No. 68. PiNUS FLEXILIS, Torrey, the Pliable-branched Pine. 

 Syn. Pinus Lambertiana brevifolia, Hooker. 

 albicaulis, Engelmann. 

 Shasta, Carriere. 



Leaves in fives, but sometimes in twos, threes, fours, and 

 fives, on the same branch ; short, stout, rigid, curved, blunt- 

 pointed, quite entire, stoutly keeled on the inner face, rounded 

 on the outer, and from two to three inches long on the adult 

 plants. Sheaths composed of numerous, long, membranaceous, 

 loose scales, which soon fall off and leave the base of the leaves 

 naked. Branches horizontal, very stout, and much contorted. 

 Cones ovate, rounded at the base, two inches and three-quarters 

 long, and nearly two inches in diameter at the widest part, and 

 full of resinous matter. Scales projecting into a thickened 

 pyramidal elevation, transversely keeled, and terminating in a 

 short, broad, incurved scar. Seeds large, oval, and wingless. 



A small tree, growing from thirty to sixty feet high in Nor- 

 thern Mexico and California, the seeds of which are eaten by 

 the Indians. 



It has an extensive range, being found on the mountains 

 alono- the Fraser River, and on the Shasta Mountains in Nor- 

 them California; also on the mountains about the head waters 

 of the Platte, Yellow Stone, Missouri, and Columbia Rivers, 

 and on the mountains above Santa Fe in New Mexico. 



Mr. Jeffrey found it on the summit of a mountain near Fort 

 Hope, on Fraser's River, and on the Shasta Mountains, growing 

 on granite rock, where the soil is scant. It is most abundant 

 at an elevation of from 8000 to 9000 feet, but ascends to 

 14,000 feet ; at its lowest elevation, when first it makes its 

 appearance on the mountains, it is a small tree forty feet high 

 and one foot in diameter, with a wide spreading top, the 

 branches being very stout, and much contorted, but dwindling 

 down to a small shrub, on the upper part of the range not 

 more than three feet high, of a tabular form, and so compact 

 that a person could walk along the top of it. It is the White 

 Pine of the Rocky Mountains. 



