THE YELLOW PINE 
97 
for considering its flowers as unattrac- [ 
tive and, in "Nicholson's Dictionary of 
Horticulture," they are stated to be min- 
ute, so that probably nothing has been 
lost by its failure to bloom. Asa foliage 
plant, however, it is ornamental, with 
leaves which open when they are about 
an inch in length, and are at first of a 
warm ivory tint, a colour they retain 
until nearly 3 inches long, when the 
upper surface becomes pale green. This 
deepens with age to a dark, glossy green, 
often handsomely clouded with dull 
purple. The under sides of the mature 
leaves, which attain a length of 1 1 inches 
and a breadth of 8 inches, are covered 
with a silvery white tomentum, which, 
as many of the leaves of the shrub dis- 
play the reverse, forms a pleasing con- 
trast to the prevailing dark green of the 
foliage. The ovate leaves, with purple 
midribs and pale green veins, have 
deeply crenate margins and are carried 
on foot-stalks 41 inches in length. The 
plant shown is by no means a record in 
point of size, for at Ludgvan Rectory, 
Cornwall, this shrub is fully 9 feet in 
height and as much through. There are 
also fine specimens in the gardens of 
Lord Annesley, at Castlewellan, in the 
north-west of Ireland, and a large plant 
is growing in the temperate-house at 
Kew. Grown in pots of light soil it 
makes an attractive plant for the con- 
servatory, when the tips of the shoots 
are pinched frequently to secure a good 
shape. In New Zealand it becomes a 
small tree of 2 5 feet, with a spreading 
crown, and a trunk of 1 2 or more inches 
in diameter. 
S. W. FITZHERBERT. 
1 THE GREATER TREES OF THE 
NORTHERN FOREST.— No. 25. 
THE YELLOW PINE {P/7/us pon- 
When crossing theashendeserts of Utah, 
the first great tree that meets the eye of 
the tree-lover is the Yellow Pine, often 
with a tall bare stem, and though not so 
impressive as the giant Pines seen while 
crossing the higher Pacific mountains, 
this tree lives in the memory owing to 
its way of thriving in such poor condi- 
tions. It grows well in most parts of 
Britain, and that it is not oftener seen 
is perhaps due to the idea fixed in the 
minds of so many planters, that the 
health and beauty of a Pine is only 
shown by its keeping the branches in 
the toy-tree stage which is only natural 
to greater pines in infancy. Even writers 
on Pines are under this spell, and Mr. 
A. D. Webster in his book on " Hardy 
Coniferous Trees " says of the Yellow 
Pine that 
" Much cannot be said in favour of this 
species, the rather lax and tortuous branches, 
i long foliage, and generally gaunt appearance, 
imparting to it more of the picturesque than 
the beautiful." 
But the pride of a Pine is in its stem, 
and it should be known to all planters, 
that the great Pines shed their branches 
much as other trees shed their leaves. 
The Californian Pines do this even more 
than the Pines of Europe, and one con- 
stantly sees stems of 100 feet without a 
branchlet. Our ways of planting have 
also been against the growth of this 
noble Pine. Isolated in grass, our often 
low rainfall is against it, and also the 
mixed shrubbery way of planting. To 
give this tree a fair trial I should put it 
