THE PINE. 389 



or eight months, in others they remain two, three, or 

 four years upon the trees, and upon Pinus pungens as 

 long as ten or twenty years. In some they stand erect, 

 in others they hang with the apex downwards from the 

 branches. The kernel of the seeds is composed of a fari- 

 naceous substance, mixed, according to the species, with 

 more or less of a terebinthinate matter ; they are of a 

 wholesome and nutritive quality, and the largest kinds, 

 such as the nuts of Pinus pinea and those of the Arau- 

 caria, are freely eaten and highly esteemed in those 

 countries which produce them. In most species the seeds 

 are polycotyledonous, as we observe them in the seed- 

 lings of the Pinus sylvestris, in which they vary from 

 five to nine ; in the larch, L. Europea, they are from five 

 to seven ; in Abies excelsa from three to nine ; and in Cedrus 

 Libani from nine to eleven. 



The wood of the Abiethfoe differs from that of dicotyle- 

 donous trees in being chiefly composed of parallel fibres, 

 a structure that gives it great elasticity ; it is also light, 

 but at the same time strong, and from its resinous nature 

 is, generally speaking, durable, particularly so in the larch 

 and cedar, which bear exposure to the vicissitudes of tin; 

 weather with as little injury as the timber of the most 

 enduring deciduous tree. 



The wood of the Abietinte is, therefore, in universal 

 use throughout the civilized world for almost all the pur- 

 poses of civil architecture ; and as no other order furnishes 

 timber of the same length, and at the same time so straight 

 and so regularly tapered, it is from the forests of this 

 tribe that the masts, yards, &c, of ships, are almost 

 wholly procured. It is also from the Abietina: that so 

 many of our useful resinous products are obtained, such 

 as the various turpentines, resin, colophony, &c. Tar 



