ms TREES 



Rocky Mountain White Pine 

 P. fiexili^, James 



The Rocky Mountain white pine inhabits mountain 

 slopes from Alberta to Mexico, including the Sierra Neva- 

 da range. In northern New Mexico and Arizona it 

 occasionally reaches eighty feet in height, but ordinarily 

 does not exceed fifty. Its rounded dome, as broad as an 

 oak, bravely dares the wind on exposed cliffs, and crouches 

 as a stunted shrub at altitudes of twelve thousand feet. 

 The "limber pine" it is called, from the toughness of its 

 fibre, which alone enables its long limbs to sustain the 

 whipping they get. The leaves form thick, beautiful 

 dark-green tufts, which are not shed until the fifth or sixth 

 year. The cones are three to ten inches long, purplish; 

 scales rounded, abruptly beaked at the apex; narrow wings 

 entirely surround the seeds, which fall in September. 



This is the lumber pine of the semi-arid ranges of " The 

 Great American Desert"; the main dependence of builders, 

 too, on the eastern slopes of the Rockies in Montana. 



The White-bark Pine 



P. alhicaulis, Engelm. 



The white-bark pine is a rippled, gnarled, squatting 

 tree, whose matted branches, cumbered with needles and 

 snow, make a platform on which the hardy mountain- 

 climber may walk with safety in midwinter. It offers 

 him a springy mattress for his bed, as well. The trunk 

 is covered with snowy bark that glistens like the ice- 



