MOUNTAIN TREES 



mountain breezes produce forest melo- 

 dies unapproachable in tone sweetness. 

 The cone of no other conifer is so beau- 

 tiful in its tapering symmetry. 



Have you ever noticed at the base of a 

 bundle of pine needles, the sheath of 

 paper-like wrappings which appear a 

 great deal like many little gray threads 

 wound about the leaves to hold them in 

 a bundle? These little wrappings are 

 the scales of the buds from which the 

 leaf bundle springs. When the needles 

 are young, the bundle, enclosed in its 

 sheath of scales, looks like a pin feather. 

 All the soft pines, of which the sugar 

 pine is an example, shed these bud 

 sheaths early, while the pitch pines re- 

 tain them so that they fall with the leaf 

 bundles. 



Every bundle of pine needles is really 

 a very short branch with the leaves set 

 so closely together that they form a 

 cluster. At the very base of the bundle, 

 beneath it, and on the main stem of the 

 new branches of spring are the primary 



53 



