THE STONE PINE 141 
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in Spain, where it flourishes at an altitude of 4,000 
feet, in Greece, and in Barbary; but it is most 
closely associated in our minds with Italy. The 
brilliant skies of the landscapes of Claude have 
their effect frequently heightened by the contrast 
with its heavy masses of dark foliage. Gilpin is 
most enthusiastic in its praise :— 
“ After the Cedar,” he says, “ the Stone Pine deserves our notice. 
It is not indigenous to our soil, but, like the Cedar, it is in some 
degree naturalised ; though in England it is rarely more than a puny 
half-formed resemblance of the Italian Pine. The soft clime of 
Italy alone gives birth to the true picturesque Pine. There it always 
suggests ideas of broken porticos, Ionic pillars, triumphal arches, 
fragments of old temples, and a variety of classic ruins, which in 
Italian landscape it commonly adorns. The Stone Pine promises 
little in its infancy in point of picturesque beauty ; it does not, like 
most of the Fir species, give an early indication of its future form. 
In its youth it is dwarfish and round-headed, with a short stem, and 
has rather the shape of a full-grown bush than of an increasing 
tree. As it grows older it does not soon deposit its formal shape. 
It is long a bush, though somewhat more irregular, and with a longer 
stem ; but as it attains maturity its picturesque form increases fast. 
Its lengthening stem assumes commonly an easy sweep. It seldom, 
indeed, deviates much from a straight line ; but that gentle deviation 
is very graceful, and, above all other lines, difficult to imitate. If, 
accidentally, either the stem or any of the larger branches take a 
larger sweep than usual, that sweep seldom fails to be graceful. It 
is also among the beauties of the Stone Pine that, as the lateral 
branches decay, they leave generally stumps which, standing out in 
various parts of the stem, break the continuity of its lines. The 
bark is smoother than that of any other tree of the Pine kind, except 
the Weymouth ; though we do not esteem this among its picturesque 
beauties. Its hue, however, which is warm and reddish, has a good 
effect ; and it obtains a kind of roughness by peeling off in patches. 
The foliage of the Stone Pine is as beautiful as the stem. Its colour 
is a deep warm green; and its form, instead of breaking into acute 
angles, like many of the Pine race, is moulded into a flowing line by 
an assemblage of small masses. As age comes on its round clumpish 
