130 



PINACE^. 



pairs, ripening when two years old, but not dropping tlieir seeds until 

 three or four years old. 



Branches, numerous, and irregularly disposed, much covered with 

 spray-like sprigs, and tufts, or bundles of leaves ; with bright 

 yellowish-brown bark. 



This Pine is a native of the United States of America, and was 

 introduced into this country more than one hundred and fifty years 

 ago ; it attains heights of from twenty-five to fifty feet ; produces 

 mushroom wood, which when dried and seasoned may be burnt, but it 

 is of no other use j the tree is hardy enough for our climate, and may 

 be useful for planting miry, marshy, peaty, or moist sandy soils, (of 

 course made sweet and healthy,) where shelter or ornament is the 

 planter's object, but for its timber never. 



PiNUS Sinensis ; The Chinese Pine. 



This is a quasi-species, or more probably a depapurated form of 

 Pinus Canariensis ; and like it too delicate and tender for the climate 

 and soils of our islands. It is found on the Chinese hills, and in 

 Assam and JN^epal. 



PiNUS StrOBUS : The Eope-like-Coned Pine. 



Who shall unearth the remains, or fetch, from the ensconced records 

 of the world's archives, the moot and dusty memoranda of the past 

 history of the Strobus Pine 1 Who shall wield the pen or ply the pencil, 

 to give a true and correct portraiture or historical epitome of the tree 

 Strobus ? It is, methinks, as old as the time when—" In the beginning 

 God created the heaven and the earth," and so well has it fulfilled the 

 injunction, " Multiply and replenish the earth that it is now to be 

 found in so many quasi-species, varieties, and sub-varieties, as are still 

 forthcoming, and which are now so numerous, that a much larger 

 volume than the present might be filled with the subject matter of these 

 two little words, Pinus Strobus. This name Strobus, it appears from the 

 ancient literati, was applied to a tree ; but what particular tree is not so 

 evident. The term, however, is of ancient, and noble Greek extraction, 

 arpEipa Streplia, to twist or twirl j and (TTpo(j)og, StropJios, is, purely and 

 simply the Greek word for a rojoe : the former truthful of the verti- 

 cillate disposition of the branches ; the latter a correct metaphor of its 

 rope-like cones. My oracle — Pliny, in his twelfth book, c. 17, writes 

 thus : — " Petunt et in Carmanos arbor em strobum ad suffitus, perfusam 

 vineo palmes accendentes. " They seek for the tree Strobus in Carmania (a 

 country in Asia ;) for the purpose of fumigation, burning it w^ith palm 

 oil and wine. He then goes on to state that, an exhilarating odour is 



