PINUS SYLVESTRIS, Scors Pine 
Pinus sylvestris, Linnzus, Sp. Pl. 1000 (excl. var.) (1753); Lambert, Genus Pinus, i. tab. I. (1803) ; 
: Loudon, 476, et Frut. Brit. iv. 2153 (1838); Willkomm, Forstliche Flora, 193 (1887) ; Mathieu, 
Flore Forestitre, 579 (1897); Kent, in Vettch’s Man. Conifera, 379 (1900); Kirchner, Loew 
u. Schroter, Lebengeschich, Blitenpfl. Mitteleuropas, i. 175 (1904); Mayr, Fremdlind, Wald- wu. 
Parkbéiume, 347 (1906); Borthwick, in Zrans. R. Eng. Arb. Soc. vi. 205 (1906). 
A TREE commonly too feet, rarely attaining 150 feet in height, with a girth of 
10 to 15 feet. Stem usually straight and cylindrical, with the branches regularly 
whorled in young trees, forming a pyramidal crown; in older and isolated trees, 
branching irregular, with a flattened crown. Bark different in the lower and upper 
parts of the trunk ; towards the base thick, fissured into irregular longitudinal plates, 
scaly, and reddish brown or greyish brown in colour; on the upper part of the stem,’ 
owing to the outer portion continually falling off in thin papery scales, the bark 
remains very thin, smooth, shining and bright red. Young shoots greenish, smooth 
and shining ; becoming greyish brown in the second year; marked with the pulvini 
of the scale-leaves, which are early deciduous. Buds long-oval, pointed, usually non- 
resinous, covered by lanceolate acuminate scales, fimbriated on their edges, the 
upper ones with their tips free and not recurved. Leaves two in a bundle; sheaths 
at first white, 4 inch long, speedily becoming shrivelled, brown, and short; the pair 
of leaves close together, but not appressed, usually about 2 inches long but varying 
under different conditions from 1 to 4 inches, dark green with interrupted lines of 
stomata on the convex side, glaucous with many well-defined lines of stomata on the 
flat inner side, plano-convex in cross-section, linear, stiff, acute at the apex, somewhat 
bent, smooth, finely serrate in margin; resin-canals marginal. The leaves persist 
usually three years. 
Male flowers in dense clusters at the lower part of the current year’s shoot, 
4 inch long, oval, short-stalked, surrounded at the base by four yellowish bracts ; 
anther with small rounded upright connective. Female flowers, solitary, opposite 
or occasionally whorled, apparently terminating the young shoot, erect at first, but 
becoming pendant immediately after pollination, stalked, globose, reddish, composed 
of rounded bracts and almost circular ovular scales, the latter having a beak-like 
process on the upper side and bearing two minute ovules. 
Cones shortly stalked, variable in shape, usually ovoid-conic with an acute apex, 
oblique or nearly symmetrical at the base, greyish or dull brown in colour, 1 to 3 
1 According to Shaw of Boston, who is the greatest living authority on the genus /27us, this peculiarity of the bark of 
the upper part of the tree being thin and reddish, owing to the constant shedding of scales, occurs only in three pines, viz. 
P. syluestris, P. densiflora, and P, patula. 
III 571 R 
