1 1 28 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Leaves in pairs,^ persisting five to ten years, 4 to 2^ in. long, rigid, curved, 

 dark green,^ ending in a short blunt cartilaginous point, serrulate, with stomatic lines 

 on both surfaces ; resin-canals marginal ; basal sheath i to ^ in. long. 



Cones subterminal, solitary or two or three together, sessile or sub-sessile, i to 

 2 in. long, conical, ovoid or sub-globose ; scales with shining dark brown apophyses, 

 the ashy grey or light brown umbo being surrounded by a darker coloured ring. 

 The variations in the size and shape of the cones and of the apophyses will be 

 dealt with under the varieties. Seed similar to that of P. sylvestHs, but slightly 

 larger in the body and shorter in the wing. Seedling with two to eight, usually four 

 to six cotyledons, about f in. long, entire in margin ; primary needles shorter than 

 the cotyledons, serrate, clothing the first year's shoot, and gradually replaced in 

 the second year by the adult geminate leaves. The seedlings grow very slowly, 

 attaining about an average height of an inch in the first year, and 2 to 3 ft. high in 

 the tenth year. No well-developed tap-root is formed. 



Varieties 



This species consists of numerous geographical races, which are difficult to 

 define, as the variations in habit are not exactly coincident with the variations in the 

 characters of the cones. In certain cases peculiarities in habit appear to be fixed and 

 hereditary, whilst in other cases these are due to soil, climate, and exposure, and are 

 not transmitted by seed. The cones are not constant in the various races ; in rare 

 cases they vary even on the same tree, and are often different in trees from the 

 same locality. There is great difference of opinion amongst foresters and botanists 

 as to the varieties, the number described being very great, but for practical purposes 

 the following arrangement is convenient : — 



I. Vzx. uncinata,^W&.omvs\, Forstliche Flora, 171 (1875); Masters, in Gard. 

 Chron. xxii. 208, fig. 42 (1884). 



Usually a tall tree, with a single undivided stem, 60 to 80 ft. in height. Cones 

 asymmetrical, very oblique at the base, ovoid-conical, 2 to 2\ in. long, directed 

 downwards or pendulous, with the scales on the outer side strongly developed, their 

 much raised and pyramidal apophyses ending in hook-like processes, which are 

 directed towards the base of the cone. This variety, which has been called by Sir 

 John Stirling Maxwell ^ the upright mountain pine, is the only form met with in Spain, 

 in the eastern and central Pyrenees, and in the French Alps, and is of rare occurrence 

 in Switzerland. It forms extensive woods in sub-alpine regions up to timber line. 



With this variety must also be classed a shorter tree, 30 to 50 ft. high, which is 

 met with in pure woods on some of the high-lying peat mosses in the Vosges, Jura, 

 Switzerland, lower Austria, and Bohemia. Isolated trees of this form are also 

 occasionally seen amongst the dwarf P, montana in the Alps of Switzerland and 



1 Occasionally the needles are in threes, as in var. mughus in the Raxalp. Cf. Kronfield, in Verhand. zool. bot. Ges. 

 Wien, xxxviii. 96 (1888). 



» Koehne, Deut. Dendrologie, 39 (1893), states that in all forms of P. montana, the epidermal cells are twice as thick as 

 in all other species, and have only linear cavities. 



3 In Trans. Roy. Scot. Arb. Soc. xxi. 10 (1908). 



