20 FAMILIAR TREES. 
scales wrapped round the base of two green needle- 
leaves, placed face to face, and as yet very short and 
slender. At the base of these twin needles there can 
be detected between them the arrested apex of the 
dwarf shoot that bears them. 
The needle-leaves vary much in length, according 
to the age of the tree and the soil in which it grows, 
the shortest being about four and the longest about 
eight inches long. Their dark green colour on both. 
surfaces, their length, and their more crowded arrange-. 
ment, together with the pyramidal outline of the 
whole tree, serve to distinguish it from the Scots 
Fir. Semicircular in section, these needles are finely 
striated with sixteen rows of stomata down their 
convex surfaces and eight rows down the inner flat 
surfaces. They have very finely toothed edges and 
a blunt apex, and remain on for three or four years. 
In section they exhibit a number of resin-ducts all 
round the leaf, each surrounded by sclerenchyma, and 
two vascular bundles in a wide central band of tissue. 
The statninate flowers are densely clustered near 
the ends of.the shoots and are of a pale yellow colour. 
Each flower is cylindrical and from an inch to an 
inch and a half long, surrounded at its base by several 
membranous bracts, and having its stamens arranged 
spirally and each furnished with a rounded “con- 
nective” or “crest.” When the two anther-chambers 
have-split longitudinally they discharge an abund- 
ance of pollen of a beautiful sulphur-yellow colour, 
and the male catkins then drop off, leaving that part 
of the young shoot to which they were attached 
in a naked state, so that, as in the Cluster Pine and 
