BOTANY. 357 



trunk a foot in diameter, their remote and regularly-whorled 

 branches, like the stem covered with a smooth, grayish-green 

 bark, showing that, although so large, the plant is still " in 

 the milk," and has only begun its life of many centuries. The 

 sugar-pine conspicuously exhibits one of the most general and 

 striking characteristics of the conifers the great develop- 

 ment of the trunk at the expense of the branches. Nearly 

 the whole growth is thrown into the trunk, which generally 

 stands without a flaw or flexure, a perpendicular cone, all its 

 transverse sections accurately circular, sparsely set with 

 branches, which, in their insignificance, seem like the festoons 

 of ivy wreathing about the columns of some ancient ruin. 

 The leaves are three inches long, dark bluish-green in color 

 and they grow in groups of five. The foliage is not dense. 

 The cones are large, sometimes eighteen inches long by four 

 thick. The wood is similar to that of the white pine white, 

 soft, homogeneous, straight-grained, clear, and free-splitting. 

 It furnishes the best lumber in the State for the " inside work " 

 of houses, and is the chief building material used in the Sierra 

 Nevada, where it grows. The tree derives its name from a 

 sweet resin which exudes from the duramen or hard wood of 

 the tree. This resin is sugar-like in appearance, granulation, 

 and taste, and could not be distinguished from the manna of 

 the drug-stores, except by a slight terebinthine flavor. The 

 pine sugar is cathartic. It is found in small quantities only, 

 though it is said one hundred and fifty pounds of it were col- 

 lected by a man who devoted himself for a few weeks to the 

 business of gathering it. 



The Western yellow pine (Pimis ponder osa) is a noble tree, 

 sometimes reaching a diameter of seven feet, and is next in 

 size among the pines of California to the sugar-pine. Its 

 leaves grow in threes at the end of the branches, giving the 

 foliage a peculiarly tufted appearance. The color of the 

 leaves is a dark yellowish-green. The bark is of a light yel- 

 lowish-brown or cork color, and is divided into large, smooth 



