BOTANICAL DESCKIPTION CUBAN PINE. 81 



of his species witli Pinus cubensis of GriseJ)ach. Recently these various forms were foiind to be 

 the same as Elliott's, to which they have been referred with his varietal name hetero))ltylla raised 

 to specific rank. The tree is little known among the inhabitants of tlie region of its growth; it is 

 generally regarded as a mere variety or bastard form of the Longleaf or the Loblolly Pine. In 

 Florida, where best known, it is distinguished as the Slash Pine, or Swamp Pine; and in the flat 

 woods along the seashore in Alabama and Mississippi as Meadow Pine. In a few localities in 

 Alabama it is erroneously called Spruce Pine. 



DESCRIPTION AND MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS. 



The leaves, two or three in a bundle, are surrounded by a smooth sheath from one-half to 

 nearly an inch in length, which, close and smooth durini;- the first season, become loose and 

 shriveled in the second year (PI. X, d). The leaves arc tidin s to 12, mostly 9 inches in length 

 and three-fourths of a line wide, glossy, of a deep-green color and closely serrulate, with a short, 

 rigid point, rounded on the back, the binary leaves deeply concave and the ternate bluntly keeled. 

 They arise from the axils of fringed deciduous bracts, are densely crowded toward the end of the 

 branches, and are shed by the close of the second season. Bundles with two leaves are most 

 frequently observed in younger trees and almost invariably on the fertile branchlets. 



The resin ducts are internal, variable in size, and in number from four to six and over, close to 

 the thin-walled bundle sheaths, which inclose two closely approximate flbrovascular bundles, often 

 coalescing. The flbrovascular region, like the ducts, shows no hypodermal or strengthening cells. 

 The hypodermal cells underlying the epidermis are as large as the epidermal cells, in the angles 

 of one or several layers. 



Flowers. — The catkin-like nmle flowers (PI. X, a, b), from l.i to 2 inches long, are of dark 

 purple (royal purple) color, supported on a short stalk and surrounded by about a dozen involncral 

 coriaceous bracts, of which the lowest pair is sti'ongly keeled (PI. X, b, slightly magnified), the 

 others being oblong with fringed edges. From ten to twenty of these cylindrical flowers are crowded 

 in dense clusters below the apex of the youngest shoots, and are shed almost immediately after the 

 discharge of their abundant pollen. The anthers are crowned with a purplish crescent-shaped 

 denticulate crest. The female flowers form an oval, pink-colored anient borne on a stalk, from one- 

 half to 1 inch in length, which singly, more frequently several in number, are produced close to 

 the terminal bud of the shoot of the season (PI. X, d). First erect, they ai'e, at the lapse of a 

 month, horizontally reflected, the shoot bearing them increasing rapidly in length during the same 

 time, long before the unfolding of its leaf buds. The involncral scales or bracts wliich surround 

 the female catkin are more numerous, narrower, longer, and more membranaceous than those form- 

 ing the involucre of the male flowers. The carpellary scales are round, with a slender, erect tip, 

 their lower half covered by the broad refuse bract. 



A tree discovei-ed by Dr. Mellichamps near Blufftou, S. C, showed the remarkable anomaly 

 of i^roducing androgynous flowers regularly every season. In most of the specimens examined 

 every one of the male flowers clustering around the base of the terminal bud of the very young 

 shoot had the upper part of the floral axis covered with I'emale flowers, appearing like a distinct 

 inflorescence superimposed upon the staminodial column, occupying generally one-third of its 

 height. In one of the flowers they were seen to extend near to its base. In a single instance it 

 was observed that the female flowers extended on one side of the staminodial column in a narrow 

 streak among the stamens. 



In a specimen from the same locality the terminal shoot of the season, exceeding in length the 

 male flowers by which its base was surrounded, was bearing a normal subterminal female ament. 

 The short- stalked cones are ovate or conical, rather obtuse, horizontally reflexed, from 4 to 5 inches 

 long, about 2i inches greatest width, of glossy leather-brown or hazel color (PI. XI, a and b); 

 scales about 2 inches long, averaging flve-eighths of an inch in width, somewhat flexible, the 

 prominent ridge of the pyramidal striated umbo with a short, mostly straight, strong prickle 

 (PI. XI, c and d). By the end of the first season the conelets are scarcely an inch long (PI. X, d). 

 Before the close of the summer of the succeeding year, the cones have reached their full size, 

 maturing during the month of October. In the ripe cones, already described, the apophyses of 

 the scales in the lower rows are almost pointless, becoming on the upper strongly mucronate. 

 The cones remain on the tree until the approach of the next summer, leaving on their separation 

 the lowest rows of the scales behind. 



