BRIEFER ARTICLES 
CHARACTERS OF PINUS: THE LATERAL CONE 
(WITH TWO FIGURFS) 
In Trees and Shrubs (1:209. i905), under Pinus Altamirani, attention 
is called to the variation in the position of the young cone as follows: 
“Like some other Mexican pines with normally subterminal cones, it 
sometimes produces double nodes and lateral 
cones and pseudo-lateral young occasioned 
by a short incomplete midsummer growth.” 
The three possible positions of the young cone 
are here found in the same species, and suggest 
the investigation of characters which have been 
considered by some authors to be of weighty 
significance in the determination not only of 
Species but of comprehensive sections of the 
genus. 
In comparing the winter bud of Pinus Strobus 
with that of P. rigida or P. Banksiana (divari- 
cata), two distinct forms are seen, the former 
predicting a single internode for the shoot of 
the following spring, the latter two or more. 
A uninodal shoot, when developed, consists of 
a shorter leafless base (which bears the stami- ; \ / Wf 
nate flowers when they are present) and a Yt Yl 
longer portion bearing the foliage and terminat- »\ ; / 
ing in a node of buds, a terminal bud, and a si | feet 
_— : _ inus Dankstana 
verticillate group of subterminal buds about its "1 
base. A multinodal shoot, in addition to this, — Multinosal 
comprises one or more inner internodes, each ari ® xg) subterminal 
clearly defined by a leafless base at one end en 
and a node of lateral buds at the other (fg. a 
=e 4 
1). The pistillate flower, the future cone, 
takes the place of one of the subterminal or lateral buds. On uninodal 
shoots its position is necessarily subterminal; on multinodal shoots it may 
be either subterminal or lateral or both, even on the same shoot. 
205] [Botanical Gazette, vol. 43 
