THE SCOTS FIR 43 



One of the great beauties of the tree is its rough 

 reddish bark, made up of flaky scales, and deeply 

 ridged down the stem, giving it a curiously mottled 

 Bfl'ect, The branches are given off numerously in 

 whorls, so that, when the .trees are grown close 

 together, the lower boughs die off, and, as Shakespeare 

 says — 



" Knots, by the conflux of meeting sap, 

 Infect the sound Pine, and divert his grain, 

 Tortive and errant, from his course of growth." 



The needles of the Scots Fir do not exceed two or 

 three inches in length, they are grooved along their 

 upper surface, curved and often twisted, and finely 

 toothed throughout their length ; and they remain on 

 the tree for two or three years. As in other species 

 of Pine, their " stomata " or transpiration-pores are 

 considerably sunk below the general surface of the 

 leaf, a markedly " xerophytic," or drought, adapta- 

 tion. It is the remarkable dark indigO-tinted colour 

 of the needles that lends to the tree the air of gloom 

 with which it is generally associated, an effect which 

 is heightened by the brown needle-carpeted ground 

 beneath, silent and bare, since, owing to the absence 

 of light, scarcely anything will grow. At a slight 

 distance the young leaves, produce quite the impres- 

 sion of a bluish haze, which no doubt led Tennyson 

 to associate the " thick mysterious boughs " , of the 

 Pine with "many a cloudy hollow." 



The tree generally flowers in May, both male, or 

 pollen-bearing flowers, and female, or seed-bearing 

 ones, being borne on the same tree. The former are 

 small yellow spikes of scales, each scale bearing a 



