Foxtail Pine 



19 



they are sharply small-toothed, marked by 3 to 6 rows of conspicuous stomata on 

 each face, and contain resin passages in the pulpy tissue and 2 fibrovascular bun- 

 dles; they are thinly distributed along the twigs and persist for about four years. 

 The flowers appear in July; the staminate in crowded clusters, are oval, about 6 

 mm. long, with yellow anthers. The pistillate flowers are nearly terminal, stout- 

 stalked, oval, about 8 mm. long, their scales yellowish and long-pointed. The 

 cones, which do not ripen until the end of the third autumn, are broadly ovoid, 4 

 to 6 cm. long, sharp-pointed, horizontal or somewhat ascending, short-stalked, 

 brown and shining, their scales thin and flat, about 8 mm. wide, very httle thickened 

 or keeled, and terminated by an oblong, paler knob, surmounted by a small, often 

 deciduous spine; the lower scales are sterile and remain closed, the unexposed 

 portion being purple; seeds oval, rounded at apex, pointed at the base, about 

 4 mm. long, dark brown, the wing thin, light brown, about 8 mm. long. 



The wood is soft, durable, brittle, close-grained and orange colored; its specific 

 gravity is about 0.54. 



12. FOXTAIL PINE — Pinus Balfouriana A. Murray 



A tree of rocky slopes and ridges of the Mt. Shasta region of northern Cali- 

 fornia to the southern Sierra Nevada, occurring at altitudes of from 1500 to 

 about 3400 meters, where it is often reduced to a shrub. Its maximum height is 

 30 meters, with a trunk diameter of 1.6 meters. 



The branches are short, stout, and outspreading in regular whorls, forming a 

 narrow compact cone; on 

 very old trees the branches 

 frequently develop into ir- 

 regular, often picturesque 

 heads. The bark is about 

 18 nun. thick, deeply fis- 

 sured into broad, coimected, 

 flat ridges, which are broken 

 crosswise into thick, nearly 

 square plates with a closely 

 scaly, dark red-brown sur- 

 face; young stems have a 

 thinner, smoother, whitish 

 bark. The leaves are in 

 sheathless fascicles of 5, 

 stout, stiff, recurved, 2 to 4 



Fig. 13. — Foxtail Pine. 



cm. long, dark green and shining above, pale beneath, entire on the margin, the 

 apex tipped by a rigid, sharp point ; they are marked by 2 rows of stomata on 

 each ventral surface and contain 2 resin-ducts and a single fibrovascular bun- 

 dle; they are crowded and pressed close to the twigs, which they cover thickly 



