44 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



This pine, though usually a tree of medium stature, 40 or 50 ft. 

 (14 m.) in height, is occasionally nearly twice as tall, and on wind- 

 swept summits is much depressed and contorted. Trees growing in 

 the open occasionally measure 4 or 5 ft. (1.40 m.) in thickness of trunk, 

 and this is covered with a dark brown bark deeply fissured into broad 

 scaly ridges and plates. 



HABITAT. From Alberta southward along the Rocky mountain 

 slopes of western Montana and Idaho and among the mountains gener- 

 ally, at from five to ten thousand feet altitude, to those of western 

 Texas, southern New Mexico and Arizona and southeastern California, 

 and westward to the high western slopes of the Sierra Nevada 

 Mountains in Fresno and Tulare Counties, California. It forms 

 extensive forests on the northern ranges of central Nevada and attains 

 its largest size on the mountains of northern New Mexico and Arizona. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood light, soft, not strong, with numer- 

 ous small resin passages, easily worked and of an orange-brown color, 

 turning reddish, and nearly white sap-wood. Specific Gravity, 

 0.4358; Percentage of Ash, 0.28; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 

 0.4346; Coefficient of Elasticity, 67531; Modulus of Rupture, 624; 

 Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, 349 ; Resistance to Indentation, 

 108; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 27.16. 



USES. The Rocky Mountain White Pine is manufactured into 

 lumber for general construction purposes, house finishing, etc., in 

 regions where abundant. It is of fair quality and an important timber 

 in regions where few other timber trees abound, especially in central 

 Nevada, northern Arizona and New Mexico. 



244. PINUS ALBICAULIS, ENGELM. 



WHITE-BARK PINE. 



Ger., Weissborke Fichte ; Fr., Pin cPecorce Hanc ; Sp., Pino 



de corteza Manca. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaves in clusters of 5 each, tufted at the ends of the 

 branchlets, l|-3 in. long, the sheath (made by the inner bud scales) deciduous, 

 rather thick and rigid, slightly incurved, acute at apex, with entire margin, a 

 single central fibro- vascular bundle, and 2 dorsal and sometimes also a ventral 

 resin duct located near the thick epidermis; branchlets stout, flexible, pubertilous, 

 rough and of a rich brown color. Flowers open in early summer, the staminate 

 in short spikes, oval, surrounded with an involucre of 8 or 9 bracts; stamens 

 with scarlet crested anthers: pistillate flowers oblong, sessile, erect, in clusters of 

 a few each, bright red and surrounded with chestnut brown bracts. Cones stand 

 at about right angles to the branchlet and are mature by the end of August of 

 the second year, from \ to 3 in. long, oval or subglobose, sessile, of a purple- 

 brown color, and with scales much thickened towards the tips where both sides 

 are exposed and contracted to a sharp edge, and stout more or less incurved dark 

 tip. The cones mostly fall in the autumn after having liberated their seeds, 



