of Pin US, native of California. 499 



about twice as long as the seed ; it has an innumerable quantity 

 of minute sinuous vessels filled with a crimson substance, and 

 forming a most beautiful microscopic object. The embryo has 

 12 or 13 cotyledons. 



The whole tree produces an abundance of pure amber- 

 coloured resin. Its timber is white, soft, and light : it abounds 

 in turpejitine reservoirs, and its specific gravity has been as- 

 certained from a specimen brought home by me, to be 0-463. 

 The annual layers are very narrow ; in the above specimen 

 there were 56 in the space of four inches and a half next the 

 outside. The resin, which exudes from the trees when they 

 are partly burned, loses its usual flavour, and acquires a sweet 

 taste, in which state it is used by the natives as sugar, being 

 mixed with their food. The seeds are eaten roasted, or are 

 pounded into coarse cakes for their winter store. I have since 

 my return been informed by Air. IMenzies, that when he was on 

 the coast of California with Captain Vancouver in 1793, seeds 

 of a large Pine, resembling those of the Stone Pine, were served 

 in the dessert by the Spanish priests resident there. These 

 were no doubt the produce of the species now noticed. The 

 vernacular name of it, in the language of the Umptqua Indians, 

 is Niit-clc/i. 



The species to which this Pine is most nearly allied is un- 

 doubtedly Pi)ins Strobiis ; from which, however, it is extremely 

 different in station, habit, and parts of fructification I have 

 named it in compliment to Aylmer Bourke Lambert, Escj., a 

 Vice-President of the Linnean Society, whose splendid labours 

 in investigating the genus Piniis are too generally known and 

 appreciated to require any eulogium from me. 



It only now remains for me to give the distinctive character 

 of tlie species. 



P. La 



m- 



