T1IK (iRKAT-CONED COULTER TINE. 



THE GREAT-CONED COULTER PINE. 



(Pinus Coulteri.) 



" Where the wind 

 Could linger o'er its notes, and play at will." 



— A mold. 



THIS is a noble pine in all respects that regard the land- 

 scape or rural adornments, yet seldom collected, often 

 omitted, briefly and imperfectly noted, sometimes 

 mixed and mystified by being confounded with allied species. 

 No pine of similar size or similitude, such as Sabin's and 

 Torrey's, can compare with the Great-Cone Coulter Pine in 

 dignity of expression, whether we regard the more massive 

 limbs which come out thickly and apparently irregular here 

 and there at all points, alternating as the spiral plan in trees 

 necessitates (hence more easily climbed), or if we regard the 

 unusually long and large foliage, a foot or so in length, of 

 sober light-green hue, but not near so gray or glaucous as 

 Sabin's slender straw, and longer than Terry's stout and long 

 straw ; the boots large and club-footed, formed of broader, 

 distinct, light-brown scales, fringed on the margins, etc. 

 But when we come to regard that monstrous cone — the larg- 

 est in the known world — with claws of a grizzly bear, we 

 begin to appreciate a few of the details that give so much 

 force of general expression to the tree. 



Remarks applied to the northern forms of this vicinity, 

 and to those found upon open hill-tops of the coast mountains, 

 must be somewhat qualified when seen in the deep gorges of 

 coast canyons farther south, for in such situations any one 

 must see they would have less spread, and from being flat or 

 round-topped, they do actually aspire to a conic summit, and 

 these trees become more than one hundred feet high and 

 from two to four feet in diameter; here, instead of having 

 single sugar-loaf cones one foot to a foot and a half long by 

 seven to eight inches in diameter, they have enormous clus- 

 ters of from three to five of these prodigious cones ! the great 

 hooked scales, or rather the terminating hooks alone, from 

 the top of the disks, being two to three inches long; i. e. near 

 the base of the cone. We have a sketch made from the one 

 in the British Museum. These are of the close and cling- 

 cone type of pines which do not open, but retain their seed 

 for many years, at least on our coast; whereas, Sabin's pine, 

 with which it has been confounded, sheds its seed so soon as 

 ripe, and the cones forthwith fall off. An empty cone is, 



