PINASTEE, OR CLUSTER PINE. 443 



In this variety, the cones, instead of being placed behind 

 the shoots of the whorl and pointing outwards, three, four, 

 or more together, are single, each invariably occupying the 

 place of the leading shoot, while the side shoots are behind 

 it, a mode of growth that necessarily deprives the tree of 

 its regular leader. This deficiency, however, is in fact 

 compensated by a more vigorous growth of one of the 

 side shoots, which then becomes a leader ; but as this 

 process is repeated year after year in different directions, 

 the stem of the tree acquires a zigzag appearance, which 

 it always retains. In its general form, and when it has 

 acquired age and size, it resembles a thick, bushy, round- 

 headed Pinaster, but without any unhealthy or dwarfish 

 aspect. At Carclew, the seat of Sir Charles Lemon, where 

 the variety first appeared, there are many fine specimens 

 upwards of thirty feet high. Seedlings raised from the 

 cones mostly retain the same character, which is said to be 

 already observable in plants of three or four years old. 



Before closing the description of the Pinaster, we may 

 briefly remark, that the Pinus Pinea, Stone Pine, which 

 in Italy and other warm parts of Europe attains a noble 

 size and picturesque form, and which enters so beauti- 

 fully, and with such marked effect, into the compositions of 

 Claude, is of too tender a constitution to thrive or attain 

 its full dimensions in England, specimens, even in the 

 warmer southern counties, rarely advancing beyond the 

 character of a large bush. At Twizell, where numerous 

 plants were raised from seed about twenty-five years ago, 

 and afterwards treated with great care and attention, the 

 whole are now dead, after having attained a height of 

 about fourteen feet. When twelve or fourteen years old, 

 they began to bear cones, and continued to do so in profu- 

 sion till their death, but the nuts rarely contained a kernel 

 so far advanced as to veo-etate. 



