212 THE TREE BOOK 



fashioned something after the style of the maple 

 key. The hickory pine, of California, departs 

 from this rule. Its cones are bathed so bounti- 

 fully in resin that the little seeds are imprisoned 

 as securely as though bound in ivory. And so 

 they remain until some chance starts a forest 

 fire, and the resin is melted. Then they escape 

 from bondage and flee away on the wings of the 

 wind to clothe some steep, rocky slope where 

 other trees cannot grow. Always, too, some of 

 them manage miraculously to escape the flames, 

 and so the hickory pine is among the first to 

 spring up in fire-blackened areas in the West. 



