EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
247 
— the mountains of Switzerland and the Alps, the shores 
of the Baltic, vast tracts in Norway, Sweden, Germany, 
Poland, and Russia, as well as millions of acres in our 
own country, abound with immense and interminable 
forests of Pine. Capable of enduring extreme cold, 
growing on thin soils, and flourishing in an atmosphere, 
the mean temperature of which is not greater than 37 ° or 
38 ° Fahrenheit , they are found as far north as latitude 
68° in Lapland ; while on mountains they grow at a 
greater elevation than any other arborescent plant. On 
Mount Blanc, the Pines grow within 2,800 feet of the line 
of perpetual snow.* In Mexico, also, Humboldt found 
them higher than any other tree ; and Lieut. Glennie 
describes them as growing in thick forests on the mountain 
of Popocatapetl, as high as 12 , 693 feet, beyond which 
altitude vegetation ceases entirely. f 
The Pines are, most of them, trees of considerable 
magnitude and lofty growth, varying from 40 to 1 50 or 
even 200 feet in height in favorable situations, rising with 
a perpendicular trunk, which is rarely divided into 
branches bearing much proportionate size to the main 
stem, as in most deciduous trees. The branches are 
much more horizontal than those of the latter class 
(excepting the Larch). The leaves are linear or needle- 
shaped, and are always found arranged in little parcels 
of from two to six, the number varying in the different 
species. The blossoms are produced in spring, and the 
seeds, borne in cones, are not ripened, in many sorts, until 
the following autumn. Every part of the stem abounds 
in a resinous juice, which is extracted, and forms in the 
* Edinburgh Phil. Journ. 
t Proc. Geological Soc. Lond. Arb. Brit. 
