1038 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



2300 metres behind the Findelen Hotel, on the Riffel Alp. Another decayed tree 

 grows near it, measuring, close to the ground, no less than 7.67 metres (about 

 25 ft.) in girth, which Dr. Klein computes, from a careful counting of the rings 

 in other trees, to be from 1000 to iioo years old, and considers to be the oldest 

 recorded tree of the species in Switzerland.^ 



In the Carpathians^ the woods of P. Cembra are smaller in extent and less 

 frequent than in the Alps, occurring from the Tatra mountains in the north to Baiku 

 in Banat, and ranging from 4200 to 7500 ft. altitude. 



In north-eastern Russia P. Cembra occurs in the plains of Vologda, Viatka, and 

 Perm, to the eastward of a line drawn from the source of the river Vaga to the middle 

 reach of the Petchora in lat. 65°, and often forms extensive forests of tall trees, with- 

 out a branch to 70 or 80 ft., which are seldom, however, cut for their timber. In the 

 Ural mountains its range is from lat. 64° to lat. 55°. 



In Siberia this species occupies a wide territory, its northern limit crossing the 

 Obi at lat. 66°, the Yenisei at 68°, the Lena at 60°, and the Aldan at 55", and it does 

 not appear to extend farther east than long. 1 30°, being replaced by P. pumila in 

 north-eastern Siberia and Kamtschatka, and by P. koraiensis in Amurland, Man- 

 churia, and Korea. The southern limit, beginning in the Ural at lat. 55°, crosses 

 the plain to reach the Alatau, Altai, and Sayan mountains, and, passing south of 

 Lake Baikal, ends in north-eastern Mongolia.^ 



In the Ural Mountains this tree is abundant, though I did not see it myself so 

 far south as the line of the Siberian railway. It occurs in the neighbourhood of 

 Ekaterinburg, where Pallas first described it.* He called it the Siberian cedar or 

 pine of Liban, probably confusing it with the true Cedrus Libani. He says that it 

 grows so slowly that in a tree only 5 in. 4 lines in diameter he counted sixty-two rings, 

 whilst a larch of fifty-nine years old was only 5 in. 9 lines in diameter. He further 

 states that in the Ural it only produces much seed when two wet seasons occur in 

 succession, and that in marshy places it grows to a much greater size than on the 

 mountains, 



Ledebour \ says that in the south-western Altai this tree ascends from about 

 4500 ft. to the timber line, which is here about 6500 ft., but this is not the case in the 

 more eastern district of the Altai which I visited, and where, probably on account 

 of the much drier soil, I saw few or no Pinus Cembra in the Katuna and Tchuja 

 mountains. But on my return journey it formed a considerable part of the forest on 

 the steep mountains forming the southern shore of the north end of Lake Teletskoi, 

 mixed with Abies sibirica, and was frequented by flocks of nutcrackers, which were 

 feeding on its seeds. These seeds are a favourite article of food in Siberia, as well 

 as in the Ural, and were sold in the market at Barnaoul in September. 



1 Cf. Correvon in Gard. Chron. xvii. 80, fig. 12 (1882), who figures an old tree in the Tyrol, about 7 ft. in diameter. 



2 Cf. Pax, Pflanaenmrb. Karpathen, i. 126 (1898), and ii. 247 (1908). Heuffel saw, just below the alpine pasture of Baiku, 

 the only grove of P. Cembra in the whole territoiy of the Banat Alps. According to Golesco, in Bull. Soc. Dend. France, 

 1907, p. 178, it occurs as a scattered tree in the P. montana belt of the mountains of the Muscel district in Roumania. 



3 Radde, Reisen im Silden von Ost-Sibirien, 117 (1861), gives the limit of elevation in the East Sayan as 7095 ft. On 

 the mountains of N.W. Mongolia at Sochondo it only attains 6500 ft. 



* Pallas, Voyages, ii. 252 (1789). 



6 Reise Altai Gebirge, i. 345-9 (1829). Ledebour, op. cit. 144, mentions a tree in the south-west Altai at 5700 ft. 

 altitude, which measured 13 ft. 8 in. in girth at a foot from the ground. 



