47° 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 510. 



Pinus monophylla of the deserts between the Rocky 

 Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, and Pinus edulis of 

 Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, live in the eastern 

 states, but grow here very slowly, giving little promise of 

 ever emerging from their strictly pyramidal juvenile form 

 or of producing cones. The former is interesting morpho- 

 logically, as it is the only Pine-tree (with the exception of 

 a monstrous seminal form of the European Pinus sylves- 

 tris) with leaves which generally appear solitary by the 

 very early suppression in the bud of one leaf of a two- 

 leaved cluster. 



In this group, too, may be placed two alpine Pine-trees 

 of western Norlh America, with leaves in five-leaved clus- 

 ters crowded round the ends of the branches in dense 

 brushes, and fitly called Foxtail Pines by the miners, who 

 often use their short stout trunks for props in the mines. The 

 first of these trees, Pinus Balfouriana, from northern Califor- 

 nia, has probably not been tried in the eastern states, but 

 the other, Pinus aristata, which is widely scattered at high 

 elevations from the outer range of the Rocky Mountains 

 of Colorado to the southern Sierra Nevada and to the San 

 Francisco Peaks in northern Arizona, was raised in 1862 by 

 Dr. Asa Gray in the Harvard Botanic Garden from seeds 

 collected by Dr. Parry on Pike's Peak. A few of these 

 plants are still left in the neighborhood of Boston, and now 

 at the end of thirty-five years are from twelve to eighteen 

 inches in height and interesting only in the evidence which 

 they afford of a remarkable tenacity of life under adverse 

 conditions. 



In the group of Pine-trees with leaves in clusters of three 

 are some of the most important timber-trees of the whole 

 genus, like Pinus palustris, the southern Pitch Pine, the 

 most valuable of all the Pines, Pinus Taeda, the Loblolly 

 Pine of the southern states, and several Mexican, Califor- 

 nian and Indian species. None of these, however, is 

 hardy in the northern states, where only a few of the three- 

 leaved Pines can be successfully cultivated. The best- 

 known here is the native Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida), which 

 is "widely scattered from New Brunswick and the northern 

 shores of Lake Ontario to northern Georgia, and from the 

 seacoast to the western slopes of the Appalachian Moun- 

 tains. This tree is valuable because it can be raised more 

 quickly and cheaply in the northern states than any other 

 conifer from seeds scattered broadcast on the ground or 

 sowed in shallow drills ; and no other conifer grows here 

 so rapidly on dry sterile gravels, which it soon covers with 

 dense forests. It is often valuable, too, where the soil is 

 poor, as an ornamental tree, and in old age it frequently 

 becomes extremely picturesque with its dark red-brown 

 roughened and deeply fissured bark, contorted branches 

 and sparse dark yellow-green rigid leaves which stand out 

 stiffly from the branchlets. To this section of the genus 

 also belongs Pinus ponderosa, one of the largest and most 

 majestic of all Pine-trees, and one of the most widely dis- 

 tributed and variable of the North American species. As a 

 rule, Pinus ponderosa and its varieties have not proved sat- 

 isfactory in the eastern states. The long-leaved California 

 forms are not hardy in New England, although I have seen 

 in the Hudson River valley two or three healthy specimens 

 from thirty to forty years planted. The form of the interior 

 of the continent (var. scopulorum) with short leaves in two 

 and in three leaved clusters and small cones is hardy in 

 the neighborhood of Boston, where it is impossible, how- 

 ever, to keep it alive more than a few years at a time, 

 owing to a fungal disease which disfigures and soon 

 destroys it. The variety Jeffreyi (the Pinus Jeffreyi of 

 many authors), a large tree of the dry parts of north- 

 ern and eastern California, with long blue-green leaves and 

 large cones, is more successful here, although healthy 

 plants are not common. This tree appears quite hardy in 

 the neighborhood of Boston, but the best specimens prob- 

 ably in the eastern states are in Delaware Park, Buffalo, 

 where eight trees planted in 1871 vary in height from 

 twenty-five to thirty-seven feet, with stems measured at 

 one foot above the ground varying from one foot nine 



inches to three feet nine inches in circumference. There 

 are two healthy plants of this variety, also, about twenty- 

 five feet in height, in Central Park, New York, near the 

 greenhouses on the east drive. This handsome and distinct 

 tree can therefore, perhaps, be used here more freely than 

 it has been, although like the green-leaved forms, it will 

 probably always suffer more or less from fungi. 



The only other Pine with leaves in clusters of three 

 which we can hope to see established in our northern gar- 

 dens is the north China Lace Bark Pine (Pinus Bungeana), 

 a tree with a stout trunk divided not far above the ground 

 into several upright secondary stems, smooth pale bark- 

 separating freely into thin scales like those ot a Birch or an 

 Arbutus, and stiff rigid yellow-green leaves. This tree is 

 very hardy in eastern Massachusetts, where, although still 

 retaining a bushy habit, it produces fertile cones in abun- 

 dance. Probably the largest and handsomest specimen of 

 the Lace Bark Pine in the eastern states is in Mr. Josiah 

 Hoopes's pinetum at West Chester, Pennsylvania (see 

 Garden and Forest, vol. vi. , p. 458). 



Among the Pines with leaves in clusters of two there are 

 a number of species which are hardy in the northern states 

 and among them are a few good park trees. The most 

 valuable for our plantations is the Red or Norway Pine 

 (Pinus resinosa). This is a tree of the far north, ranging south- 

 ward only to eastern Massachusetts, where it occurs in a 

 few small isolated groves, the mountains of Pennsylvania, 

 and central Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. In its 

 best state the Red Pine is a tall-stemmed tree one hundred 

 and fifty feet in height, with a trunk five feet in diameter, 

 although more usually it does not attain much more than half 

 that size. In the beauty of its long dark green, lustrous 

 leaves and light red bark, and in its rapid growth it excels 

 all the Pitch Pines which are hardy here, although a climate 

 colder even than that of eastern Massachusetts is required 

 to develop all its beauty. Botanically this tree is interest- 

 ing as the only American representative of a peculiar Old 

 World group of species of which the so-called Scotch or 

 Rega Pine (Pinus sylvestris) is the best known in this 

 country. This is the great timber Pine of Europe, where 

 it is widely spread over the continent and over Russian 

 Asia, often forming vast forests on sandy northern plains. 

 Grown under the best conditions in its native countries, 

 Pinus sylvestris, with its tall trunk covered with light red 

 bark and picturesque crown of short and often contorted 

 branches clothed with pale blue-green leaves, is one of the 

 handsomest of the Pines. It was introduced into the United 

 States early in the present century, and, unfortunately, 

 nurserymen have found it a profitable tree to raise. Its 

 value, like that of a good many other foreign trees which 

 can be easily and quickly grown in nurseries to marka- 

 ble size, has been extolled far and wide, and it has been 

 largely planted all over the northern states as an ornamen- 

 tal tree and to form wind-breaks on the prairies and plains 

 of the central west. Experience has shown, however, that 

 although Pinus sylvestris grows in America while young 

 with great rapidity, producing seedlings spontaneously, it 

 soon dies from the attacks of disease and boring insects, so 

 that trees more than thirty or forty years old are rare in 

 this country. In European nurseries a number of mon- 

 strous forms are propagated ; the most distinct of these is 

 the variety pumila, a small compact shrub, the variety fas- 

 tigiata, with erect branches, and the variety monophylla 

 on which the leaves are solitary. There are also cultivated 

 forms with leaves marked more or less conspicuously with 

 white and with yellow, and others with pendant branches 

 or otherwise different from the normal in slight peculiarities. 



The Austrian Pine, which is now generally considered a 

 variety of the Pinus Laricio of southern Europe, has also 

 been largely planted in the northern states as an orna- 

 mental tree. It grows here very rapidly, and, although 

 less beautiful than the native Red Pine, in youth it is a 

 handsome tree of good habit and rapid growth with long 

 dark green rigid leaves. Easy to raise, the Austrian Pine, 

 like the Scotch Pine, has been too much praised by Ameri- 



