Lake Umbagog.
1907
August 10.
1907
Aug. 10
Pinus banksiana
  Owing to its relatively small size,
to its irregular and straggling habit of growth,
and to the extreme shortness of its needles
Bank's Pine bears an interesting and 
very close resemblance to Pinus inops
of the Middle States. Indeed I doubt if
the two could be certainly distinguished
from one another, if growing together, unless
the observer were very near them.
At Umbagog Pinus banksiana is very strictly
confined to the shores of the Lake rarely
occurring more than one hundred yards back
from high water mark. It seems to
prefer wind-swept points and islands where
the ground is sterile
and rocky and where
there are few if any trees of other kinds.
In such exposed situations it rarely
attains a height of more than thirty
or forty feet and is much given to
growing out laterally rather than upwards. I have
seen specimens so very low and flat topped that, at a
distance and in uncertain lights they
might be
easily mistaken for small oaks or apple
trees. But when stimulated by deeper,
richer soil and by the competitive
struggle for existence with other trees
which crowd it closely, Banks's Pine
may shoot upward to heights
much greater than those
just mentioned. A
(over)