KNOBBY CONK 1'INK. 63 



the top. Ill general, not so flat-topped as the usual wont of 

 pines, nor foliage tufted, and so more diffusely mantled. 



On rather bald magnesian hills it sports quite another 

 extreme; here, laden with cones one can readily reach from 

 the ground. For the most part, along the coast hills the tree 

 is of low growth, even broadly pyramidal in outline, shoot- 

 ing out relatively long widespread branches from very near 

 the ground, so that the span often about equals the height, 

 say ten to thirty feet, or so; six inches to a foot, or more, in 

 diameter; bark, light brown and roughish. In some locali- 

 ties, of slow growth, those in richer heads of ravines indicate 

 thrift. In the vicinity of San Francisco it seems pretty well 

 satisfied with a humble position in the world; envies not 

 other Nobs, nor doth it go to be promoted over the trees. The 

 numerous rigid horizontal limbs, where it is most buffeted 

 by fierce winds, necessarily distribute the foliage better than 

 Kindred conifers of the coast. Owing to this peculiarity, it 

 divides and conquers the stormy winds well, and the residue 

 is so rendered powerless for harm that it passes through 

 chastened in its joyous journey. In this characteristic it 

 differs from the Monterey, Bishop, and other kindred pines. 

 This apt arrangement of limb and leafage make it more than 

 a match for the nearly dead-level breeze that surges below, 

 as the Signal and other like species are for the storm that 

 plays above, where the sea-bird and the eagle soar. 



The leaves are in threes, bootees half an inch or more 

 high, the thready foliage four to six inches long, scarcely 

 remotely saw-toothed, dull, somewhat blue-green. This lop- 

 horned is laden throughout with roughly tubercled cones, 

 pretty closely set, and strongly bent back. These short- 

 horned granaries are four to six inches long, about a third 

 as thick, in whirls of two to four or so around the branches. 

 Several of these wheels of green cones often form on the 

 same year's growth, require two or more years to fully ripen ; 

 color leather-brown, more darkened, faded, or bleached, or 

 "silvered o'er with age," as they cling persistently from ten 

 to thirty years, or for a lifetime. This cylindroid-conic fruit 

 is moderately pointed, slightly curved, and very oblique at 

 the base on the outside, the angled diamond-like disks of 

 the scales, as it were, hilled up into a thick, prominent knob, 

 prickly-pointed; seeds small, black, and slightly grooved on 

 the sides, about one fourth of an inch long; wing about three 

 times as long, widest at or above the middle; cotyledons, five 

 to eight. 



Found mainly on the coast ranges, from San Bernardino 

 and Santa Lucia Mountains, to San Francisco; north, to 

 Shasta, and along the foothills of the Sierras, Forest Hill, 

 Forks of the American River, two thousand five hundred 

 feet altitude, and here and there throughout the State. A 



