24 



The Pines 





Fig. 17. — Red Pine. 



slender and flexible, 12.5 to 15 cm. long, minutely toothed, sharp, hard-tipped, 

 marked on the ventral faces by faint bands of small stomata and containing many 

 small resin-ducts beneath the epidermis and 2 fibrovascular bundles; they persist 



for three to five years. The staminate 

 flowers appear in May, in dense spike-hke 

 oblong clusters, 12 to 18 mm. long, the 

 anthers dark purple; the pistillate flovi^ers 

 are terminal, 2 or 3 together, stout-stalked, 

 subglobose, 6 mm. long, their scales scarlet, 

 broadly ovate, the apex reflexed. The cones 

 are horizontal, 5 to 7 cm. long, nearly sessile, 

 light brown and shining, soon shedding their 

 seeds, but the cones persist until the follow- 

 ing spring or summer; the unexposed por- 

 tion of the scales is dull purple; the ends 

 are transversely ridged, shghtly thickened, 

 terminated by a spineless knob. The seed 

 is oval, compressed, 3 mm. long, dark brown 

 and mottled; the wing thin, bright brown, 

 about 18 mm. long, broadest near the base 

 and obUque; cotyledons 6 to 8. 



The wood is hard, rather close-grained, 

 pale red with dark resin bands and passages ; its specific gravity is about 0.48. It 

 is largely used for heavy construction, masts, and piles. The bark is rich in tannin 

 and is sometimes used for tanning. It is a handsome tree in cultivation, being 

 hardy and of very rapid growth, and is also known as Norway pine and Hard 

 pine. 



17. BULL PINE — Pinus ponderosa Lawson 



A tree of the western mountains from Montana and British Columbia to 

 Cahfpmia, at and above an altitude of 600 meters, reaching a maximum height 

 of 70 meters, with a trunk diameter of 2.4 meters. 



The trunk is straight and stout, its branches short and thick, much forked 

 and often pendulous, usually ascending at the tips, forming a regular narrow conic 

 tree; in poor soil the branches are stouter, forming a round-topped head. The 

 bark is 5 to 10 cm. thick, deeply furrowed and broken into large broad plates, light 

 reddish brown ; on younger stems the ridges are more rounded and covered by 

 close, nearly black scales. The twigs are stout, orange-colored, becoming darker 

 to almost black, and roughened by the thick, persistent bases of the brown bud- 

 scales. The young growth is pungent and pecuharly aromatic. The terminal buds 

 are ovoid, 12 to 18 mm. long, sharp-pointed, almost twice the size of the lateral 

 ones. The leaves are in 2 's or 3's in sheathed fascicles, 1.3 to 4 dm. long, small- 

 toothed toward the sharp, stiff apex, dark yeUowish green, stomatiferous on aU 



