CONIFERS 



33 



aiid from Monterey to San Luis Obispo County; in Lower California on Cedros 

 Island, and on the coast between Ensanado and San Quintan; of its largest size and 

 the most common Pine-tree on the coast of Mendocino County. 



33. Finus puiigens, Michx. Table Mountain Pine. Hickory Pine. 



Leaves in clouded clusters, rigid, usually twisted, dark blue-green, l^'-2' long, 

 deciduous during their second and third years. Flowers : staminate in elongated 

 loose spikes, yellow; pistillate clustered, long-stalked. Fruit oblong-conical, oblique 

 at the base by the greater development of the scales on the upper than on the lower 

 side, sessile, deflexed, in clusters usually of 3 or 4, or rarely of 7 or 8, 2'-3' 

 long, becoming light brown and lustrous, with thin tough scales armed with stout 

 hooked spines incurved above the middle of the cone and recurved below it, those 

 on the inner side of the cone slightlv thickened, and on the outer, especially near 

 the base of the cone, produced into much thickened mam initiate knobs, opening 

 as soon as ripe and gradually shedding their seeds, or often remaining closed for 

 two or three years longer, and frequently persistent on the branches for eighteen or 

 twenty years; seeds almost triangular, full and rounded on the sides, nearly ^' 

 long, with a thin conspicuously roughened light brown shell, their wings widest 

 below the middle, gradually narrowed to the ends, 1' long, ^' wide. 



A tree, when crowded in the forest occasionally 60 high, with a trunk 2-3 iu 

 diameter, and a few short branches near the summit forming a narrow round-topped 

 head; ill open ground 

 usually 20-30 tall, 

 and often fertile 

 when only a few feet 

 high, with a short 

 thick trunk frequent- 

 ly clothed to the 

 ground, and long 

 horizontal branches, 

 the lower pendulous 

 toward the extremi- 

 ties, the upper sweep- 

 ing in graceful up- 

 ward curves and 

 forming a flat-topped 

 often irregular head, 



and stout branchlets, light orange color when they first appear, soon growing darker 

 and ultimately dark brown. Bark on the lower part of the trunk ^'-1' thick and 

 broken into irregularly shaped plates separating on the surface into thin loose dark 

 brown scales tinged with red, higher on the stem, and on the branches dark brown 

 and broken into thin loose scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, brittle, very coarse- 

 grained, pale brown, with thick nearly white sapwood ; somewhat used for fuel, 

 and in Pennsylvania manufactured into charcoal. 



Distribution. Dry gravelly slopes and ridges of the Appalachian Mountains 

 from Pennsylvania to North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, sometimes ascending 

 to elevations of 3000, with isolated outlying stations in Virginia, eastern Pennsyl- 

 vania, and western New Jersey; often forming toward the southern limits of its 

 range pure forests of considerable extent. 



