RED PINE 
prickle. Seeds oval, compressed, one-eighth of an inch long, chest- 
nut brown, mottled ; wings three-quarters of an inch long one-quarter 
wide, broadest below the middle. 
The Red Pine is a northern tree and finds its most con- 
genial home in Newfoundland and westward along the north- 
ern shore of the St. Lawrence, through Ontario and Mani- 
toba, coming but sparingly into the United States. It does 
not make close forests, hence it is not a timber tree. It 
grows when possible in the open; in the forest one looks for 
it at the edge of a lake where, at least, it may have light and 
air and freedom on one side. It is usually found alone on 
dry, sandy, gravelly or rocky places, never on flat lands with 
cold clay bottoms. It isa very beautiful tree. The branches 
are in distinct whorls, the branchlets are stout and covered 
with a thick false bark, composed of the bases of the leaf 
scales which run down along the stem. The leaves are four 
to six inches long, in clusters of two, and form very conspicu- 
ous tufts at the end of the branchlets. The sheaths are long 
and it isa common amusement among children to pull out one 
leaf, put the point of the remaining one into the vacant place, 
and so make a link of a leafy chain. 
The glory of the Red Pine is its staminate blossoms, 
Imagine a tree, eighteen inches in diameterand fifty feet high, 
branching near the ground as regularly as an oak and stand- 
ing in an open space on the bank of a northern lake. The 
dark green leaves covered with pale bloom give a shim- 
mering effect as they respond to the slightest movements of 
the wind. From top to bottom, on the tip of every branch 
may be seen in early spring the dark red tassels of staminate 
blossoms, short and thick and crowded forming a cluster that 
so far as effect goes is a deep red rose. The supreme mo- 
ment is brief, the flowers wither very soon, cast their pollen 
to the wind and are gone. Well developed Red Pine trees 
are so rare in northern Minnesota that they are landmarks ; 
the finest are found on the Indian reservations where they 
have escaped the axe and the torch. The cones are short, 
unarmed, ovate-conical, a bright cinnamon brown like the 
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