112 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



leave unmentioned the humble bushes, without 

 which our landscape would be less fair. But 

 we shall have to content ourselves with in- 

 cidental reference to some of the most interest- 

 ing of them in a later chapter. 



The stone pine is a conifer that rarely be- 

 comes more than a bush in this country. 

 Travellers in Italy know it well ; and many 

 who have never seen it in nature, have made 

 its acquaintance in art, particularly in Turner's 

 Italian landscapes, for he delights to use its 

 massive head as a foil to the limpid azure of 

 the sky; though, as Ruskin points out, he 

 often gives to it something of the character of 

 the Scots pine. In its native haunts, the 

 countries bordering on the Mediterranean Sea, 

 it is a large tree. Mr. Edward Step says, "it 

 must be confessed that the stone pine is less 

 beautiful than picturesque, a point that strongly 

 recommends it to the landscape painter ". The 

 distinction made here between the beautiful 

 and the picturesque is a useful one ; only it 

 might be urged that the latter is a phase of the 

 former. But this is merely a question of terms. 

 Tumble-down buildings may be picturesque. 

 Perhaps, for distinction's sake, we should re- 



