218 PINE. 



Description. The Scotch Pine is a lofty tree, often attain- 

 ing the height of eighty or ninety feet, but is seldom straight in 

 its growth ; the branches are numerous, oblique, covered with 

 a rough, brown bark, which scales off in large thin flakes. 

 The leaves arise in pairs from a tubular, membranous sheath ; 

 they are evergreen, rigid, linear, straight, acute, somewhat 

 curved, rather concave, of a glaucous, green colour, two inches or 

 more in length, furnished at the base of the sheath with a small, 

 reddish scale. The flowers are terminal and erect, monoecious, 

 united in catkins. The male are disposed in small, short, compact, 

 terminal, yellowish catkins, composed of scales umbricated in a 

 spiral manner, soon surmounted by a protruding leafy branch ; 

 the filaments are very numerous, connected below into a cylin- 

 drical column, with oblong, wedge-shaped anthers of two cells, 

 crowned with a jagged, membranous crest. The female flowers 

 constitute an ovate, roundish catkin, variegated with green and 

 purple, each bractea containing two naked ovaries. The year 

 after impregnation, the young fruit or cone becomes lateral 

 stalked, reflexed, and of a more ovate figure ; and the second 

 year, the scales being indurated, forms an ovate, pointed, tes- 

 sellated, woody cone*. The winged seed has a hard crus- 

 taceous integument. Plate 37, fig. 3, (a) the male catkin 

 with its bracteae ; (b) the anthers ; (c) the crest of the anthers ; 

 (d) the female catkin with its bracteae ; (e) a ripe cone ; (/) 

 seed with its wing. 



This tree forms extensive forests in some mountainous, dry, 

 and barren situations, and occurs throughout Europe as far 

 north as Lapland. It is the only indigenous species, and is 

 frequent in Scotland, especially at Invercauld in Inverness-shire, 

 and Gordon Castle, Aberdeenshire. The generic name is de- 

 rived from the Celtic pin or pen, a rock or mountain. It was 

 called Pin in Armoric, Peigne in Erse, Pinna in Welsh, and 

 Pinn in Anglo-Saxon. 



The genus Pinus, as now limited, contains, besides the pre- 

 ceding, the Corsican Pine, (P. laricio,) a fine, handsome tree ; 

 the Cluster Pine, (P. pinaster,) a great favourite with some of 

 the old painters ; its timber is cut into shingles for covering 

 houses in Switzerland ; the Stone Pine, (P. Pinea,) the seeds of 



* Commonly called " pine -apple." 



