146. PIN us LAMBERTIANA SUGAR PINE. 51 



GENUS PINUS, TOURNEFORT. 



Leaves evergreen, needle-shaped, from slender buds, in clusters of 2-5 together, 

 each cluster Invested at its base with a sheath of thin, membranous scales. Flowers 

 appearing in spring, monoecious. Sterile flowers in catkins, clustered at the base of 

 the shoots of the season; stamens numerous with very short filaments and a scale-like 

 connective; anther-cells, 2, opening lengthwise; pollen grains triple. Fertile flowers 

 in conical or cylindrical spikes cones consisting of imbricated, carpellary scales, 

 each in the axil of a persistent bract and bearing at its base within a pair of inverted 

 ovules. Fruit maturing in the autumn of the second year, a cone formed of the 

 imbricated carpellary scales, which are woody, often thickened or awned at the apex, 

 persistent, when ripe, dry and spreading to liberate the two nut-like and usually 

 winged seeds; cotyledons 3-12, linear. 



(Pimis is a Latin word from Celtic pin or pen, a crag.) 



146. PINUS LAMBERTIANA, DOUGL. 



SUGAR PINE. 



Ger ., Zukre-Ficlite; Fr., Pin a Sucre; Sp., Pino de azucar. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS Learns in 5s, 3-5 in. long, rather thick, rigid, with denti- 

 culate margins and with loose deciduous sheaths. Staminate amenta oval, in. long, 

 and with 10-15 involucral' scales; crest of anthers denticulate. Cones subterminal, 

 cylindrical, large, 12-18 in. or even more in length, and 2-4 in. in diameter when 

 closed (expanding to 6 or 8 in.), drooping, 1-4 together on pedicels 2-3 in. long, with 

 broad, round- pointed scales slightly thickened at apex, the apophysis and seeds in. 

 or somewhat more in length, black, smooth, with edible kernel, obtuse wing not 

 quite twice as long as the seed and widest below the middle; cotyledons 13-15. 



A magnificent tree, the grandest of the important genus to which it 

 belongs, and but for the Sequoias would be considered one of the won- 

 ders of the world in the line of arboreal growth. Indeed, it may well 

 be as it is, as individuals are recorded as attaining the height of 300 ft. 

 (90 m.), and with trunks 20 ft. (6 m.) in diameter, though such trees 

 are a half or a third larger than commonly seen. It has a beautiful 

 columnar trunk, destitute of branches to a height of 100 feet or more, 

 then develops an open pyramidal head, small for the size of trunk, but 

 still large, and from the ends of the branches hang its wonderful cones 

 fully in keeping with the size of the tree. The bnrk of trunk is of a 

 dark gray color, rough with rather firm longitudinal ridges, resembling 

 that of the white pine (P. Strobus). Upon the stumps and burned 

 trunks may be found a sugary manna-like exudation from which the 

 tree takes its name. 



HABITAT. From northern Oregon southward among the Cascade, 

 Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges, mostly from 300 to 8,000 ft. altitude, 

 generally interspersed with other timbers and over which it rears its 

 lofty head, attaining its greatest size on the Sierras of central and north- 

 ern California. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood light, soft, compact, easily worked, 

 quite satiny, with very large and. conspicuous resin passages and bands of 



