THE STONE PINE 141 



in Spain, where it flourishes at an altitude of 4,000 

 feet, in Greece, and in Barbary ; but it is most 

 closely associated in our minds with Italy. The 

 brilliant skies of the landscapes of Claude have 

 their effect frequently heightened by the contrast 

 with its heavy masses of dark foliage. Gilpin is 

 most enthusiastic in its praise : 



"After the Cedar," he says, " the Stone Pine deserves our notice. 

 It is not indigenous to our soil, but, like the Cedar, it is in some 

 degree naturalised ; though in England it is rarely more than a puny 

 half-formed resemblance of the Italian Pine. The soft clime of 

 Italy alone gives birth to the true picturesque Pine. There it always 

 suggests ideas of broken porticos, Ionic pillars, triumphal arches, 

 fragments of old temples, and a variety of classic ruins, which in 

 Italian landscape it commonly adorns. The Stone Pine promises 

 little in its infancy in point of picturesque beauty ; it does not, like 

 most of the Fir species, give an early indication of its future form. 

 In its youth it is dwarfish and round-headed, with a short stem, and 

 has rather the shape of a full-grown bush than of an increasing 

 tree. As it grows older it does not soon deposit its formal shape. 

 It is long a bush, though somewhat more irregular, and with a longer 

 stem ; but as it attains maturity its picturesque form increases fast. 

 Its lengthening stem assumes commonly an easy sweep. It seldom, 

 indeed, deviates much from a straight line ; but that gentle deviation 

 is very graceful, and, above all other lines, difficult to imitate. If, 

 accidentally, either the stem or any of the larger branches take a 

 larger sweep than usual, that sweep seldom fails to be graceful. It 

 is also among the beauties of the Stone Pine that, as the lateral 

 branches decay, they leave generally stumps which, standing out in 

 various parts of the stem, break the continuity of its lines. The 

 bark is smoother than that of any other tree of the Pine kind, except 

 the Weymouth ; though we do not esteem this among its picturesque 

 beauties. Its hue, however, which is warm and reddish, has a good 

 effect ; and it obtains a kind of roughness by peeling off in patches. 

 The foliage of the Stone Pine is as beautiful as the stem. Its colour 

 is a deep warm green ; and its form, instead of breaking into acute 

 angles, like many of the Pine race, is moulded into a flowing line by 

 an assemblage of small masses. As age comes on its round dampish 



