140 THE PINES. 



a nut pine with a large edible seed. It is sometimes 180 feet high. 

 This is Pinus Sabiniana. It is ot a branching, forked, or rather strag- 

 gling growth. The trees are generally far apart and mixed with white 

 oaks (Q. Douglasi). Its leaves are long, of a dull gray color, and the 

 foliage is usually so thin as to offer but little shade. The cone is 

 long persistent on the tree. This pine is frequent in the Tehachapi. 

 Gray-leaf pine seeds are large, black, sweet, and with a very hard shell; 

 a favorite Indian food. It is not found in our neighborhood. The 

 cone is very large, dark colored and with hook-like spines. Two 

 other pines take its place in our neighborhood ranges. These are P. 

 attenuata (P. tuberculata of American authors) and P. Coulteri. P. at- 

 tenuata is a small, straggling tree with green foliage and a long 

 knobby cone. It is a rather poor looking tree. It also grows on hot 

 foot-hills. A striking peculiarity of this tree is that its cones re- 

 main firmly closed for indefinite periods, often until opened by fire. 

 Thus, when a fire kills these trees, a plentiful sowing of seed for a 

 rew growth takes place. A few of this species are found in the Sierra 

 Nevada warm belt. 



I forget whether it was Muir or Lemmon who noticed the uniform- 

 ity of age of trees in tuberculata or attenuata groves. This we may 

 assume to be due to its habit of seding all at once after a fire. In 

 such fires the old trees seem to have been killed. Some people think 

 that this tree resists fire better than others. I find no adequate con- 

 firmation of this opinion, unless it be its method of producing new trees 

 after a scorching fire. 



P. attenuata is scarce here, as elsewhere. It is found on the south 

 face of the San Bernardino range. 



The other foot-hill tree, P. Coulteri, is quite handsome, with green 

 foliage, leaves in threes and never to be mistaken, on acount of its 

 gigantic hooked cone. This cone is the largest in the world. When 

 mature it is of light color, growing darker on the ground, and is 

 armed with large, curved hooks. The cone is quite persistent, so much 

 so that the tree wood often grows around the base so as to enclose 

 some of its scales and cause it to break like base-b:eakers. The male 

 flowers are cream color. The cone weighs from fiv3 to eight, and, it 

 is said, even ten pounds. It was first found in the Santa Lucia moun- 

 tains, where it is in a forest of its own. In San Bernardino, it ranges 

 from 1,800 feet to 7,000 feet above ihe sea. It makes fair lumber. 

 The seeds resemble those of P. .leftreyi. 



The curious Torrey Pne has an unusually large cone. Its foliage 



