284 
A COMPARISON OF THE 
Fig. 70. 
Fig. 71. 
Fig. 7a. 
Conical Trees.— This term is sufficiently explicit, and includes 
all those trees of flatly conical form which are usually called 
pyramidal. The latter term refers to those members of the conical 
class which have a breadth about equal to their height. The pear 
tree, Fig. 71, among deciduous trees, is a type of the pyramidal 
form. 
The Norway spruce and hemlocks, Fig. 7 2 > are types of conical 
forms. Most species of poplar (the Lombardy poplar being an 
exception) have the pyramidal-conical form while young, but with 
age they round out into trees of the first class. The Balm of 
Gilead poplar, and the cucumber tree, are good examples of com¬ 
pact deciduous trees of this class when young, but they all become 
round-headed trees at maturity. 
Nearly all evergreens are conical when young, and very many 
of deciduous trees also. Few of the latter, however, retain this 
character after they are full grown. The white pine when quite 
young is an open-limbed conical tree; but when twenty years old, 
if it has grown in congenial soil, and an open exposure, it 
assumes an ovate-pyramidal form, with the rounded masses of 
foliage that characterize round-headed trees, but retains otherwise 
the general outlines of the conical class in its after growth. The 
yellow or northern pitch pine {P. rigida) changes from a straggling 
conical form when young, to an irregularly branched oblate-headed 
tree in age. The Scotch pine, which is of a rounded conical form 
when young, becomes, with age, as picturesquely rounded as the 
oak. The scarlet oak, Fig. 64, is a good example of a straggling 
conical form when young, though it becomes a loose round-headed 
tree at maturity. 
