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4 BULLETIN 460, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
resin of the heavy, more resinous-wooded pines. All of the pines — 
yield resin in greater or less quantities, but so far the commercial 
qualities of only a few of these resins have been determined. In 
recent years the wood of pine stumps and old legs is also being dis- 
tilled for turpentine, this product being known as wood turpentine. 
Some 79 species of pines are known in the world. Thirty-six of 
them inhabit the United States, 14 of which occur in the Rocky Moun- 
tain region. Six of these Rocky Mountain species occur also in the 
Pacific slope region, and one ranges eastward from the Rockies in 
Canada into the Atlantic coast country. 
Pines are of ancient origin, some of them having existed in North 
America and Europe in the Cretaceous and Miocene periods. 
WHITE PINES. 
Trees with light, soft wood in which the early and late formed portions of the 
annual rings are not sharply defined. 
WESTERN WHITE PINE. 
Pinus monticola Douglas. 
COMMON NAME AND EARLY HISTORY. 
Pinus monticola is now properly known as western white pine. 
It is hoped that this name may be widely accepted in order to avoid 
confusing Pinus monticola with its eastern relative, Pinus strobus. 
For a number of years it was known to western lumbermen and manu- 
facturers as “ Idaho white pine” and “ Montana white pine,” because 
the commercial supply of lumber came from forests in northern Idaho 
and northwestern Montana. It is also called “ white pine,” probably 
on account of the similarity of its wood to the well-known white — 
pine (Pinus strobus) of northeastern United States and adjacent 
Canadian territory. The book names “silver pine,” referring to the 
silvery-green hue of the foliage, and “mountain Weymouth pine,” 
based partly on the tree’s technical name and partly on an English 
name for Pinus strobus, are not in current use. 
Western white pine was discovered by that redoubtable Scotch ex- 
plorer of our Northwest, David Douglas, who found it in 1831 near 
the Columbia River, whether in Oregon or Washington is unknown, 
but probably in Washingten. The tree was technically described and 
named for the first time in 1837. The name then given to it, Pinus | 
monticola, has been generally maintained and there has been little — 
or no confusion of the western white pine with other white pines of 
its range. Because of its general resemblance to the eastern white 
pine (Pinus strobus), Nuttall described it in 1849 as a variety (Pinus 
strobus ® monticola) of this species, from which, however, it is dis- 
‘ 
tinct. In 1888 and 1895 Dr. J. G. Lemmon distinguished two varie- 
