WEST AMERICAN SCIENTIST. 



Vol. I. 



San I>iego, California, May y 1885. 



Xo. <>. 



A. popular review and record { n ^ ^„„ *»„„_„, ^ » r^ t> rv „ S Entered as second-class mat- 

 tor the Pacific Coast, i PtTBLISffE© MONTHLY BY C. R. OrCUTT. \ te r at Sail Diego Postoffic*. 



HISTORICAL NOTICE OF PINUS 

 TORREYANA. 



BY C. a PARRY. 



[Read before T&e San Diego Society of Natural 

 History November 2d, 1«»3 J 



In the Spring of 1850, when 

 connected with the Mexican 

 Boundary Survey, my attention 

 was first called to a peculiar spe- 

 cies of pine growing on the Pa- 

 cific coast at the mouth of the 

 Soledad valley, San Diego county, 

 by a casual inquiry from Dr. J. L, 

 Le Conte, the distinguished Amer- 

 ican entomologist, then staying in 

 San Diego, who asked what pine 

 was growing near the ocean beach 

 at that locality. Not having any 

 specimens to show, he simply 

 mentioned at the time its dense 

 cones, and its long, stout leaves, 

 five in a sheath. Not long after 

 an opportunity offered to the 

 writer for a personal investigation, 

 having been ordered by Major W. 

 H. Emory to make a geological 

 examination of the reported coal 

 deposits on the ocean bluff above 

 Soledad. 



In making a section of these 

 strata (see Report of the Mexican 

 Boundary Survey, Vol. I, Part 2) 

 it was necessary to follow up some 

 of the sharp ravines that here de- 

 bouch on the ocean beach, and 

 here my attention was taken up 

 by this singular and unique mar- 

 itime pine, which, with its strong- 

 clusters of terminal leaves and its 



distorted branches loaded down 

 with ponderous cones, was within 

 easy reach of botanical clutch. 

 From the notes and collections 

 there made a description was 

 drawn up dedicating this well 

 marked new species to Dr. John 

 Torrey, an honored friend and in- 

 structor both of Dr. Le Conte and 

 the writer. 



Of the few specimens then col- 

 lected a single cone and bunch 

 was sent to Dr. Torrey, to be fig- 

 ured for Mexican Boundary Re- 

 port (Vol. II, p. 10, pi. 58-59). 

 While there it fell under the no- 

 tice of some inquisitive botanist, 

 who extracted some of the loose 

 seeds, which were planted, but by 

 some inadvertence were mixed 

 with a three-i eaved species. When 

 growing the two different kinds 

 became confounded and it was in- 

 ferred that the present discoverer 

 was mistaken in regarding this 

 species as five-leaved. 



Prof, Parlatore, the elaborator 

 of Coniferae in D. C. Prodromus 

 added to this confusion by ignor- 

 ing the name first proposed and 

 substituting that of Pinus lop- 

 hosperma, but fortunately the 

 earlier publication of the Mexican 

 Boundary Survey, with an accur- 

 ate figure, permanently fixed the 

 name of Pinus Torreyana, Parry 

 thus commemorating one of our 

 most honored American botanists 

 by association with a tree peculiar 



