TREES GROWING IN DRY SOIL. 295 



By Professor Sargent it is said to be indigenous in the moun- 

 tains of northern Greece. As a timber tree it is practically 

 worthless. Buds, page 30. 



Jlsculus rubicknda, red horse chestnut, is cultivated mostly 

 for ornament, and for the sake of the contrasting colours of their 

 flowers it is planted by the side of ^Esculus Hippocastanum. 

 The deep pink of its blossoms mingling with the bright green 

 of its leaves, spotted here and there with red, is very lovely. 

 The tree is never tall, sometimes hardly more than a shrub. 

 Each flower has but four slightly spreading petals. Generally, 

 it is thought to be a hybrid between the horse chestnut and 

 Aisculus Pavia, red buckeye. This latter plant bears bright 

 red flowers, and usually occurs as a shrub. Its best growth is 

 in Virginia and southward. 



HICKORY PINE. TABLE-MOUNTAIN PINE. PRICKLY 

 PINE. (Plate CLXII.) 



Plnus phngens. 



FAMILY SHAPE HEIGHT RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Pine. Head, narrow ; branches, 1060 feet. N. J. and Penn. to May. 



short, ascending. No. Carolina and 



Tenn. 



Bark : reddish brown ; when old, rough and broken into plate-like scales. 

 Leaves: dark bluish green; seldom over two inches long; simple; growing 

 closely along the branches in bunches of two or sometimes three, and having 

 sheaths at their bases ; needle-shaped, the outer side round and smooth, the 

 inner side grooved; stiff. Staminate flowers : growing in long spikes. Pistillate 

 ones : clustered in the young cones. Cones : pale, reddish yellow; three to four 

 inches long ; oblong or ovate ; sessile, and frequently growing in clusters of 

 four or more; heavy. Scales; woody, with a hooked spine nearly an inch long. 



The great pines, so simple in construction, must always inter- 

 est us, and from the larches, the firs, the cedars and the spruces, 

 which also are members of the family coniferae, we readily dis- 

 tinguish them because their leaves, although varying greatly in 

 length, are needle-shaped and grow in clusters of from two to 

 five. At their bases they are sheathed, or held together by a 

 thin, membranous scale. When pressed together they form a 

 cylinder. 



