The Pines 



tree of striking habit. Its cones are woody, armed with stout 

 beaks, and from 3 to 5 inches long. There is nothing peculiar 

 in these cones, nor in the pale yellow-green foliage in its 3-leaved 

 clusters. The tree is slim and tall, and grows on the hot, dry 

 fire-swept foothills of California mountains. A stranger notes 

 how dense and uniform in size is the growth of these trees, and 

 how thickly studded are the limbs with clusters of cones. Close 

 examination shows them sealed up tight — not a scale sprung on 

 the oldest cone, though the branch that bears it may have actu- 

 ally swallowed the cone by the increase of its diameter. 



A fire sweeps over the slope, and every tree gives up its 

 cones. The scales are unsealed at last and the seeds, whose 

 vitality has been preserved, apparently, in anticipation of this 

 day, germinate at once, and soon a new forest takes the place of 

 the old one. With such an abundance of seed, is it wonderful 

 that the trees stand close and even like wheat in a field ? 



Cuban Pine, Swamp Pine (P. Caribcea, Morelet.) — Tree, 

 100 to 120 feet, with tapering trunk and dense, round crown, 

 above large horizontal limbs. Bark in broad, scaly, irregular 

 plates, reddish brown, showing orange in the shallow fissures. 

 Wood heavy, very hard, strong, tough, durable, coarse, dark 

 orange, with thick, nearly white sap wood. Buds, elongated, 

 scaly, f to i^ inches long, light brown; lateral buds smaller. 

 Leaves in clusters of twos and threes; stout, dark green, 8 to \2 

 inches long, persistent 2 years; sheaths thin, brown. Flowers in 

 January, before new leaves, subterminal; staminate clustered, 

 incurving, purplish, i to i^ inches long; pistillate oval, 2 to 3 

 in cluster, pinkish, \ inch long. Fruits elongated, 3 to 7 

 inches long, narrowing to blunt apex, pendant, with beaked, 

 thickened scales and winged seeds. Preferred habitat, damp, 

 sandy soil of swamp borders, with even moisture supply. Dis- 

 tribution, coast region. South Carolina to Florida and Louisiana. 

 Also Bahamas, Cuba and other islands, and Central America. 



No more beautiful pine grows in the Southern States than 

 this stately tree that skirts the swampy coast land, forming great 

 forests and casting a goodly shadow under its thick, dark, lustrous 

 foliage mass. Beside it the other pines seem to have very ragged 

 and loose crowns. Here in the humid air that flows from sea or 

 gulf, the Cuban pine promises to replenish our depleted forest 

 areas even as the shortleaf does back from the coast. The same 



41 



