24:6. PlNUS BALFOURIANA FOXTAIL PlNE. t>ALFOUR PlNE. 47 



246. PINUS BALFOURIANA, MUPR. 



FOXTAIL PINE. BALFOUR PINE. 



Ger., Fuchsscliwanzige Ficlite ; Fr., Pin dequeue de rcnard ; Sp., 

 Pino de cola de zorra. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaves 1-1 J in. long, in clusters of five each, sur- 

 rounded at base with a short cup-like sheath, crowded and pressed against the 

 branchlet and persisting for ten or twelve years, stout, rigid, incurved, acute, 

 entire, dark green on dorsal and paler with rows of stomata on the ventral sur- 

 faces and bearing single fibro-vascular bundle and two dorsal resin ducts; branch- 

 lets at first puberulous and of an orange-brown color become darker with age 

 and long remaining rough with the thick persistent bases of the bud-scales. 

 Staminate flowers oval, scarcely | in. in length, closely crowded near the 

 extremity of the branchlet and surrounded each by four involucral bracts; 

 anthers reddish orange with irregularly denticulate crest; pistillate flowers sub- 

 terminal, erect, oblong-ovoid, dark purple, with acutely -pointed scales and borne 

 on stout peduncles from -f in. in length and covered with light brown ovate 

 acute bracts. Cones at maturity pendulous, from 3^-5 in. long and from 1|-1| 

 in. wide, subcylindrical, dark purple with long and narrow scales much thick- 

 ened towards the rounded apex, the exposed portion transversely keeled and 

 furnished with a dark umbro bearing a very small and slender deciduous 

 spine. The seeds are liberated in the autumn of the second year and are about 

 ^ in. in length, somewhat compressed, pointed at base, cream-color dotted with 

 purple, and furnished with a pale membranous wing, about f-1 in. in length, 

 oblique at apex and widest at about the center; cotyledons 5. 



The specific name, Balfouriana, is given in compliment to the Scotch botanist, 

 Jolm Hutton Balfour. 



Generally a small or medium-size alpine tree of 30 or 40 ft. (10 m.) 

 or less in height, but in localities most favorable to growth it has 

 been found 90 ft. (27 m.) in height, with trunk 5 ft. (1.50 m.) in 

 diameter. The bark of trunk is rather thick, of a dark red-brown 

 color, deeply fissured into broad ridges and broken into irregular 

 scaly plates. It forms a pyramidal top, symmetrical at first, but finally 

 the lower branches become dependent and the top more or less dis- 

 torted, but its appearance is always striking on account of its closely 

 appressed, short dark -green needles which persist for ten or fifteen 

 years, and clothe the long, stout branchlets an unusual distance from 

 their tips, giving the tree its descriptive vernacular name. 



HABITAT. A tree of very local distribution, being found only in 

 California, and there only on the high slopes of certain mountains in 

 the northern part of the state, as ML Eddy, Scott Mountain (near 

 Mt. Shasta, though strangely it has not been found on Mt. Shasta), on 

 Yolo Bally of the coast range, and then on the southern Sierra Nevada 

 range in the vicinity of Mt. Whitney. It forms belts of open forests, 

 distinguishable at a distance by its dark green foliage, between five 

 and eight thousand feet altitude, in the north immediately below the 

 White-bark Pine and near the timber line. On Mt. Whitney, where 

 it attains its greatest development, it ranges to fifteen thousand feet 



