Pine family 



rarely of four, slender, dark blue green, serrulate, acute, with 

 callous tips, soft, three to five inches long ; fibro-vascular bundles 

 two. Sheaths thin, silvery white at first, later become daik grayish 

 brown. Persist from two to five years. 



Flowers. — Staminate flowers in short crowded clusters, near the 

 tip of the growing shoots, oblong-cylindrical, three-quarters of an 

 inch long; anthers pale purple with orbicular, slightly denticulate 

 crests ; involucral bracts eight to ten. Pistillate flowers in clusters 

 of two, three or four, subterminal, oblong or subglobose, one-third 

 of an inch long ; scales ovate, rose pink, with slender tips ; bracts 

 nearly orbicular. 



Cones. — Lateral, very abundant, o\ate or oblong-conical, one and 

 a half to two and a half inches long, persist several years. Scales 

 nearly flat, obtuse, thickened at ape.x, marked with a prominent 

 transverse ridge, armed with small, slender, nearly straight, de- 

 ciduous prickles. Seeds triangular, brown, mottled with black ; 

 wings broadest at the middle, thin, pale brown, one-half an inch 

 long. 



GRAY PINE. JACK PINE. SCRUB PINE 



P}nlts Jn'CiriLCtla. 



Frequently seventy feet high with straight branchless trunk, long 

 spreading branches forming an open symmetrical head ; often much 

 shorter and sometimes shrubby. Fruits when very young. A north- 

 ern tree, ranging from No\'a Scotia southward to i\Iaine, Xew Hamp- 

 shire, and Vermont, westward to northern Indiana and Illinois, and 

 in the northwest to the vallej' of the ^lackenzie River, where it is 



the only pine tree. In sandy soil, sometimes 



formintr exclusi\'e forests. 



Bark. — Dark brown with reddish tinge, with 

 shallow rounded ridges separating into small ap- 

 pressed scales. Branchlets slender, tough, flex- 

 ible, pale yellow green, becoming dark reddish 

 purple and later dark purplish brown. 



Wood. — Pale brown, rarely yellow, sapwood 

 nearly white ; light, soft, not strong, close- 

 grained. L^sed for t\iel, railway ties, and posts. 

 Indians prefer ii for frames of canoes. 



Buds. — Branch-buds ovate with rounded ape.x, 

 terminal bud one-fourth of an inch long, as long 

 again as the lateral buds. Covered with ovate- 

 ate pale brown scales with spreading tips, whose bases 

 after the body of the scale has fallen and roughen the 



lanceol 

 persist 

 branch. 



460 



