THE PINE TREE. 185 
reared in masses, It has a soft and delicate appearance, is of 
formal growth, and has silky foliage. Its timber is white 
and soft, and forms the white American pine of commerce, 
which is extensively imported into Britain. It is remarkable 
for being clean and free of knots; it is easily worked, and is 
generally employed for inner doors, boardings, mouldings, and 
the furnishings of house-carpentry. One of the largest trees 
in Britain is at Strathfieldsaye ; it measures about 100 feet in 
height, with a trunk about four feet in diameter. Although 
the tree when young often produces top shoots two feet long in 
one summer, yet its average progress throughout England, of 
fifty or sixty years’ growth, does not exceed one foot yearly. 
Few pines advance more rapidly during their nursery treat- 
ment ; consequently they soon overgrow it; and the demand 
for the plant is very small, the tree being generally unprofit- 
able in Britain. 
P. excelsa (Wallich).—The lofty or Bhotan pine is a native 
of the Himalayan mountains, where it attains the height of 
from 80 to 100 feet. In appearance it bears a great resem- 
blance to the Weymouth pine, but it is of a stronger and 
more robust habit of growth, with leaves considerably longer, 
and branches more drooping. It was introduced into this 
country in 1827. It forms a very ornamental tree, and its 
growth is equal to that of the Weymouth pine. Ten-year- 
old plants are generally 12 feet high. The timber is white, 
soft, and very resinous; on the slightest incision the tree 
readily yields a pure and limpid turpentine. Though the 
tree has a rich and luxuriant appearance in soft and sheltered 
ground, it assumes a bare and naked aspect when exposed to 
the influence of wind, which prevents it from becoming a 
generally useful timber tree. It grows from imported seed, 
with the treatment adapted to the Scotch pine. 
P. Lambertiana (Douglas) : The Gigantic, or Lambert's Pine. 
—This tree is a native of the north-west coast of South America, 
and was introduced into England in 1827 by Douglas, who 
gives the following account of it in its native country :— 
“One specimen which had been blown down by the wind, and 
