68 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
pine. The young branches seem to have no true bark, but to 
be covered by the decurrent foot of the shrivelled leaf, from 
which grows the sheath of the bundles of leaves. The surface of 
every part of the tree is thus more rough than that of any other 
tree of the forest. But it is less liable to be covered by lichens.* 
The branches are in imperfect whorls of three or more. So 
many of the branches perish, that this circumstance is often not 
visible in a solitary tree, but, to one examining a large number, 
it is immediately obvious. They usually tend upwards irreg- 
ularly at a considerable angle, forming large deep masses of 
foliage, and never, except in very old trees, have the horizontal 
growth common to most other pines. As the trees usually grow 
at some distance apart, on extremely poor soil, they are almost 
uniformly much branched, and the branches are irregular, and 
larger than in other trees of this family. The leaves are in 
threes, with a callous point, flattish, rounded on the external 
side and angled within, and from two to five or six inches long; 
arranged in spirals and forming a stiff brush at the ends of the 
branches. The buds, which are long and slender, are covered 
with resin; they are found only at the extremities, where a 
single large bud is encircled by three or more smaller ones. 
The sterile flowers are in catkins, half an inch or more long, 
in a few spirals around the base of the recent shoot, where they 
take the place of bundles of leaves. The anthers have two 
cells, from which is discharged a great quantity of sulphur- 
colored pollen. The fertile flowers are in cones, which are 
either solitary or two or more together, near the extremity of 
the new shoot. At the period of flowering, in May or June, 
they are one-third of an inch long, on a stout footstalk covered 
with thin reddish scales. At this period both male and female 
flowers have great beauty. At the end of one season, the cones 
are not apparently changed in size. At the end of the sccond, 
they are sometimes fully, sometimes half grown. When ma- 
ture, which is usually at the end of the second autumn, although 
sometimes not till the third, they are of a conical shape, from 
* A few Usneas and large Stictas, and occasionally the more vigorous Parmelias, 
find place on the bark. 
