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CHAPTER XXI. 



STUDY OF TREES. 



One of the interesting things about our forest trees is that these 

 have such a tendency to grow in pairs. This fact will simplify your 

 study of the trees. 



PINES, HOW DISTINGUISHED. 



Taking the grand yellow pine as our most important forest tree, 

 we find that it has a brother called the Jeffreyi, or black pine. Let 

 us commence with these in furnishing points not purely botanical for 

 identification. First, how will you know a pine from any other conifer 

 of our mountains? You can know them by the leaves alone. These, 

 whether short or long, single or in bundles, are always needle-like and 

 always in a sheath at the base next the branch. That is one point, and 

 it is enough. When you find a cone bearer with a needle-like ever- 

 green leaf, with a sheaf from which the leaf or leaves spring, it is a 

 pine. The only other genera of the sub-tribe "fasciculares" are the 

 cedrus and larix, neither native to California. 



The name of the yellow pine is pinus ponderosa. It is a splendid 

 tree of very wide range and several varieties. Its habit is straight, of 

 regular form and it grows tall, 120 to 300 feet. The leaves grow out 

 of their sheaths in threes. Their color is medium green. Their taste 

 and odor aromatic and piney. The leaves are from four to ten inches 

 long. 



The yearling cones are green and of rather oval form. The mature 

 cones are brown and generally small, three or four inches, although 

 sometimes four to five inches long. The cones always break off the 

 tree, usually leaving some of the scales on the tree. From this it is 

 called a base-broken-cone. It is always widely open when on the 

 ground. The general shape is ovate-conical. The seeds are about one- 

 half an inch long with wings an inch long. Male flowers large and 

 long. The typical bark is a bright salmon color, very thick and fis- 

 sured into large plaques, suggesting the skin of an alligator. No other 

 pine has bark like it. The great stem of these pines, when thus typical, 

 is a beautiful and grand column of the forest, recognizable as far as 

 one can ses it. 



