DEVELOPMENT OF PINE-TREE 



75 



fore and aft, off the plane of the paper, being omitted, 

 and even then the rapid increase in the regular branching 

 of each lateral soon leads to confusion : nevertheless we 

 see that it consists merely in each lateral bearing a pair 

 of lateral shoots each year in succession, each of which 

 lateral shoots then gives rise annually to another pair of 

 laterals, each of which developes its own annual pair in 

 turn, and so on. 



Hence we know the age of such a tree at a glance, by 

 counting the number of whorls and adding one [or more] 



Fig. 23. Simplified diagram of a sapling-Pine. 



for the seedling years in which no whorl had been 

 developed. We also know the age of each uninjured 

 lateral, by counting the pairs of laterals it has in its turn 

 put forth. For instance, in Fig. 23, the fourth principal 

 lateral counting from the top was four years previously a 

 bud in the same condition and position as regards the 

 then leader, as is now one of the lateral buds flanking the 

 extreme terminal bud at the apex of the present leader ; 

 or, if we suppose the figure to represent a tree of this 



