LET’S “KNOW SOME TREES E 
” near 
needles occur in bundles of five and are massed in * foxtails 
the ends of the branches. 
A very beautiful tree is the western white pine, sometimes called 
“ silver pine,” “mountain white pine,” or “little sugar pine,” which 
grows above the true sugar pine belt. Its grayish bark is only about 
an inch thick; its needles, in bundles of five, are blunter pointed than 
those of sugar pine and its cones suggest miniature sugar pine cones 
but have sharp- pointed seed wings, “the seed wi nes of sugar pine 
being rounded. 
The so-called “tamarack” of the California mountains, properly 
named lodgepole pine, sometimes forms rather large forests, as it 
once did on the mountain ridges between Lakes Tahoe and Car son, 
but most often strageles along “the edges of mountain meadows. The 
needles are in twos; the bark is gray or brownish, somewhat soft, and 
full of resin. Woe to the thoughtless boy who cuts his initials in 
that temptingly soft bark. In a short time the incision is dripping 
pitch, which will get on his hands and clothes, on those of his fellow 
campers, and of anyone who follows his party. ‘The cones are seldom 
over 2 inches long. The tree is at its best from 6,000 to 8,000 feet 
above sea level. 
The bushy little alpine pine known as whitebark pine or “ dwarf 
pine,” which interests all who cross the high Sierra passes, has thin, 
silvery bark at first smooth and later fissured and checked, leaves in 
clusters of five, and cones a deep purple when growing on the tree, 
brown when-dry, and from 114 to 3 inches long. While the trees are 
truly dwarfed into shapeless shrubs on the highest elevations where 
they occur, in more sheltered spots of deep, rich soil they have been 
found 50 feet high and almost 2 feet in diameter. 
The knobcone pine or “ scrub pine,” is a small tree 20 to 40 feet in 
height, and seldom as much as 18 inches through. In slightly differ- 
ent forms it occurs in both the Coast Range and the Sierra. The 
needles are in threes and are light green; the cones, in clusters around 
the stem, remain indefinitely on the tree with the prickly scales 
closed. 
The Torrey pine (fig. 6), found near the sea only in San Diego 
County and on Santa Rosa Island, is the rarest of California pines. 
Bent by sea winds, it is a crooked, sprawling tree 20 to 30 feet in 
height, and from 8 to 14 inches through. Occasionally, away from 
the sea winds and in protected hill coves, it has a straight trunk 
from 50 to 60 feet in height. The species is anomalous among yel- 
low pines because its stout, eray-green needles, 7 to 12 inches or more 
in length, are in clusters of ‘five. The russet or chocolate-brown 
strongly attached cones, about the size of a coconut, bear large edible 
seeds. 
The Bishop, or pricklecone pine, is a hardy, little-] -known species 
found in widely separated areas along the coast from Mendocino 
County south to San Luis Obispo County. It sometimes reaches a 
height of 60 feet or over and a diameter of from 12 to 20 inches. It 
isa : bushy tree with a dense pyramidal crown, deep-green foliage and 
leaves 314 to 4 inches long, two to a bundle. Its bark is rough, 
deeply furrowed, purplish ‘brown in color and its cones are indefi- 
nitely persistent. 
71013° 
