306 



LUSSOIfS WITS PLANTS 



LIX. PINES AND THEIR KIN 



370. The pines are monoecious. Both kinds of 

 flowers are in catkins. If one examines the 

 Austrian or the Scotch pine just after growth has 



begun in the spring, he' 

 will find a cluster of 

 light yellow pollen-bear- 

 ing catkins at the base 

 of the new growth, 

 and a reddish fertile or 

 seed -bearing catkin, or 

 sometimes two of them (Fig. 321 B) , 

 on the tip of the shoot, — but not 

 from a terminal bud, — and elevated 

 two to six inches above the others. 



Fig. 320. 



Staminate catkin 



and scale of 



pitch piue. 



370a. This arrangement of the two kinds 

 of flowers may suggest that of the hickory, in 

 Fig. 160. The pupil should determine the rela- 

 tive numbers of sterile and fertile catkins, 

 and should observe the profusion of pollen. 

 Examine the common white pine, and others, 

 to see if these relative positions of the two 



kinds of catkins obtain in all of them. Also examine the firs 



and spruces. 



371. The pollen- bearing catkins soon fall. The 

 scales, in most pines, are conspicuously widened at 

 the outward end, and are attached to the axis by 



