CONIFERS, OR CONE-BEARIKG TREES. 265 



The Garden," London, accompanying an article on this Pine by- 

 Andrew Murray, Esq. Cones often remain closed for a year or 

 two after they are mature. A small tree, rarely more than 

 thirty feet high, with wide spreading and somewhat twisted 

 branches. Wood light-colored, straight-grained, but usually 

 too small to be of much value. A tree found in swampy 

 grounds near the sea coast, 

 f rom Calif ornia northward 

 to Alaska. Var. Murray- 

 ana, Engelm,, is a much 

 taller-growing tree, some- 

 times reaching a hundred 

 feet high, and stem four 

 to six feet in diameter, 

 with longer leaves and 

 cones, opening at matu- 

 rity, all of which may be 

 due to a more favorable 

 soil and climate, as it is 

 found in the higher Sierra 

 Nevada, eastward to Utah, 

 Colorado, and Northern 

 New Mexico, but an oc- 

 casional specimen will be 

 met in these regions, cor- 

 responding in almost every 

 particular with the description of the species as it is found on 

 the Northern Pacific Slope. Both species and variety succeed 

 in our Atlantic States. 



P. Coultei'ij Don. — Coulter's Pine, Hooked-Cone Pine. — Leaves 

 in threes, six to eleven inches long, quite large and coarse. 

 Sheath an inch and a half long while young. Male flowers cy- 

 lindrical and almost or quite two inches long, surrounded by 

 eight or ten bracts, Cones very large, on short stems, long, 

 oval-pointed, ten to fourteen inches long, and four or five in 

 diameter, of a yellowish-brown color, each scale terminated by 

 a long, very strong incurved point, in some instances this horn- 

 like point is two inches long. Seed oval, dark-colored, nearly 

 black, and a half inch or more in length. Nuttall says that 

 this tree was first discovered by Dr. Coulter on the Santa Lucia 

 Mountains, near the Mission of San Antonia, in the thirty-sixth 

 degree of latitude, and within sight of the sea, at an elevation 

 12 



Fig. 56.— LEAVES AND CONES OP 

 PINUS CONTORTA. 



