THE TREES OF NORTH CAROLINA. 37 



other species. The leaves are two in a sheath, 1 to 

 2 inches long, about half the length of those of the 

 preceding species, while the cones are considerably 

 larger than in that, being 2 to 2£ inches long, and 

 armed with longer and stouter sharp prickles. This 

 tree is too small, often crooked, and generally with 

 too much sap-wood, to be of any value. 



3. Prickly Pine. (P. pungens, Michx.) — The 

 name here given is but a translation of the scientific 

 one, as I could never learn that it was distinguished 

 from the Yellow Pine by the inhabitants of the region 

 where it grows. In some books it is called Table 

 Mountain Pine, because it was originally supposed to 

 be pretty much confined to that mountain and its 

 immediate neighborhood. But as I have seen it from 

 the mountains of Virginia and Georgia, and from 

 Pilot Mountain in this State, far east of the Blue 

 Ridge, and have found it common on all the eastern 

 spurs of the Blue Ridge (never west of it), in the 

 northern portion of our mountain range, such a name 

 is too local to be at all appropriate. This species is, 

 however, the least widely diffused of any North 

 American Pine. The tree is not very symmetrical, 

 is from 30 to 50 feet high, and 12 to 20 inches in 

 diameter. The leaves are in pairs, as in the two pre- 

 ceding species, but much thicker and stiffer than in 

 those, and about 2£ inches long. But the cones give 

 the chief peculiarity and interest to this Pine. They 

 are of a light yellow color, very compact, 3 inches 

 long and 2 inches broad at the base, the scales armed 



