512 LXXVI. CONIFEIUE. [Pinus. 



P. longifolia. The wood is much used for torches ; jagni, Pushtu ; masJml, 

 Hindi. Chips and small pieces of the wood form an article of trade in the tree- 

 less inner Himalaya, under the name of Ldshi, chanshing. The cones are useful 

 for lighting fires. The bark is used to roof huts in the forest, and trees are 

 often seen denuded of their bark to a considerable height. The leaves and 

 twigs are much used for litter ; and the leaves of this species, as well as of P. 

 longifolia, are mixed with mortar and plaster in building. Madden states that 

 in Kamaon, in a fair dry winter, the leaves and branches get covered with a liquid 

 exudation, which hardens into a white kind of manna, sweet, not turpentiny, 

 which is eaten. A similar exudation (Manne de Briancon) is collected in the 

 French Alps on the leaves of the Larch, and used as a purgative. 



P. Strobus, Linn., called White Pine in America, and Weymouth Pine in 

 England, is similar to P. excelsa, but has shorter leaves and more slender cones. 

 It is a large and most important timber-tree, formerly often found 200-250 ft. 

 high and 18 ft. in girth, which grows luxuriantly in damp forests mixed with 

 leaf-bearing (deciduous) trees, in the Northern United States from the head- 

 waters of the Mississippi eastward,', on the Alleghany Mountains, and in Southern 

 Canada. The wood is white or pale-yellowish white, soft and light (30-35 lb.), 

 free from knots, easily worked, i& durable, but has little strength. It is the 

 wood used most in North America for building, furniture, and other purposes, 

 and is exported from Canada. The tree grows rapidly while young, is hardy in 

 England (introduced 1705), France, and Germany, it has been cultivated on a 

 considerable scale in some forest tracts of Germany, where the timber pro- 

 duction per acre has been found higher than that of other Conifers. 



To the same group, with 5 leaves in one sheath, belongs P. Cembra, Linn. ; 

 Reichenb. Ic. Fl. Germ. t. 530. Arve, Zirbelkiefer, Germ. ; Cirmolo, It. ; Gein- 

 brot, auvier, Fr. ; Arolla of the Alps. A middle-sized, slow-growing, and long- 

 lived tree of the Alps and Carpathian Mountains in Central Europe, which forms 

 extensive but irregular forests between 4000 and 7000 ft., often at the upper 

 limit of arborescent vegetation. The leaves are short, stiff, dark-green, and the 

 cones short, ovoid ; the seeds are wingless, broad, ovoid, and somewhat 3-sided. 

 They are eaten. 



Of the Section Pinaster, with 2 leaves in each sheath, no species except the 

 doubtful one mentioned at p. 506 inhabits North- West India. The remark- 

 able tropical Fir of Tenasserim and Siam, which S. Kurz has identified with P. 

 Merkusii of Sumatra and Borneo (Flora, 1872, 264) belongs to this section. It 

 is closely allied to P. sinensis, Lambert (Benth. Fl. Hongk. 337) Syn. P. 

 Massoniana, Lamb. ; of South China, Formosa and Loo Choo islands. Both 

 species have semicylindric leaves, 7-9 in. long., the convex back marked 

 with numerous prominent lines, and persistent sheaths ; the cones are ovoid 

 or ovoid-lanceolate, 2-3 in. long, recurved when ripe, the thickened part of 

 the scales rhomboid. They are much alike, and may perhaps eventually be 

 united. In the Tenasserim specimens the end of the scales (apophysis) is pyra- 

 midal, 4-7-sided, while in P. sinensis it is flat. The Tenasserim Pine grows in 

 forests of Dipteroearpus tuberculatus of the Thoungyeen valley, which occupy 

 vast areas of high ground and dry undulating hills, the moister valleys be- 

 tween being covered with Bamboo forest, often containing Teak. The wood is 

 exceedingly resinous, the stems not very tall (50 ft. to first branch) and not 

 very regularly shaped. 



P. Thunbergii, Parlatore ; DC. Prodr. xvi. ii. 388 Syn. P. Massoniana, 

 Sieb. et Zuccar ; Fl. Jap. 1. 113, 114 is a large tree of Japan, Corea, and North 

 China, hardy in England, with stiff rigid leaves 3-5 in. long. 





