The Pines 



and these are borne to the ground by their own weight. Such 

 a tree is a joy the whole year through to all tree lovers, including 

 people and birds and squirrels. 



The Arizona White Pine (R si robif ormis, ) Engelm., is 

 scattered scantly over gravelly ridges and on canon sides in the 

 southern part of New Mexico and Arizona, and on into Mexico. 

 Its pale-green leaves and glaucous, downy branchlets blend it 

 with the semi-arid landscape. Its scarcity and the inaccessibility 

 of its habitat and range defend this tree from the lumberman, 

 though it occasionally reaches the height of 80 feet or more, and 

 a trunk diameter of 2 feet. 



Mountain Pine, Silver Pine {Finns monticola,) D. Don. 

 — A spreading, pyramidal tree with stout trunk and slender, 

 pendulous branches. Bark light grey and thin, becoming 

 checked into square plates, with purplish scales and cinnamon- 

 red under bark. Wood light brown or red, soft, fine grained, 

 easily split, weak. Buds pointed, scaly, large, hoary, clustered, 

 terminal. Leaves i^ to 4 inches long, thick, stiff, blue-green 

 with pale bloom. Flowers similar to those of F. Strobits. Fruit 

 biennial, cones slender, 10 to 18 inches long; scales thin, broad, 

 tipped with abrupt beak; seeds winged. Fref erred habitat, 

 sub-alpine valleys of streams. Distribution, Vancouver Island 

 and southern British Columbia to northern Idaho and Montana, 

 and south into California. Elevations 7,000 to 10,000 feet. Uses: 

 Not equal to F. Strobits in cultivation. Locally used for lumber 

 in Idaho and Montana. 



The mountain white pine is the Western counterpart of F. 

 Strobus, which it resembles in general appearance and in the 

 qualities of its wood. Its foliage is denser and its cones nearly 

 twice as large as those of our Eastern white pine, with a beak 

 on each scale that the latter species lacks. 



It is unusual, even in the Sierras, to find a tree of gigantic 

 size climbing mountains. This one at the elevation of 10,000 

 feet shows specimens 6 to 8 feet in diameter and 90 feet 

 high, apparently "growing nobler in form and size the colder 

 and balder the mountains about it." The tree companions of this 

 pine crouch at its feet; whatever they may be at lower levels, 

 here they are dwarfs, and only the white pine keeps its noble 

 proportions unmindful of the blasting winds and cold. 



F. monticola surprises and delights the Eastern lover of noble 

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