THE TORREY PINE 



97 





* ^^SM; ^s^^^^ 1 y -' . , . "*< 



THE SCATTERED GROWTH ALONG THE ROADWAY. 



Drawn by E. Roorback. 



deep, irregular ridges. The bark of the 

 young trees is grayer and quite spongy. 

 The wood is brittle and wide grained. 

 The needles tough, unusually long, being 

 from eight to twelve inches in length and 

 in fascicles of five. They are dark 

 grayish green, clustered in heavy looking 

 bunches at the end of thick, knotty 

 branches. The cones are triangularly 

 oval, about four to five and one half 

 inches in length, strongly attached to 

 thejbranch by short, thick sterns. They 

 ripen in the early fall of the third year 

 but persist upon the tree for four or 

 five years. Cones of all ages of growth 

 hang upon the tree at the same time. 

 The seeds are dark brown with yellowish 

 streaks and are ranked with the Digger 

 and Big Cone pine, the Parry and One- 

 leaf Pinon in food value. The seeds 

 often remain within the cone several 

 years after it has fallen to the ground. 



TheTorrey pine, in order to counteract 

 excessively adverse conditions, are pro- 

 lific bearers. The cones are dark brown 

 with an upward turning spike on the 

 end of each scale. The scales do not 

 readily release the seeds while on the 

 trees but wait for the winds to send them 

 rolling down to the pockets of earth. 

 Unless the seeds are washed into 

 crevasses of the earth that are filled with 

 mineral soil, they are not apt to ger- 

 minate. So the tree spreads slowly, but 

 now that this tract of land is under the 

 care and direct supervision of a city 

 forester, a new and hopeful growth is 

 gaining a footing. This pine is thought 

 to be short lived, barely reaching to a 

 hundred years of age, as far as can be 

 determined. Yet the strange feature 

 of this island of pines is that there 

 are no dead stumps to be seen and no 

 scars in the ground from which they 



