528 EVERGREEN TREES AND SHRUBS. 
smoothly-rounded and symmetrical beauty, gives it an expression 
more in harmony with deciduous trees than most evergreens, while 
in mountain regions it develops the highest degree of picturesque¬ 
ness. Its form is generally rounded rather than pyramidal; the 
branches radiate more irregularly, and are not so straight and for¬ 
mal in their disposition as those of the white and Austrian pines, 
and the foliage therefore breaks into less stratified and more oak¬ 
like masses. For this reason, on young trees, the foliage appears 
to be more dense than that of the white pine. 
The dull color of its foliage is the one thing that prevents the 
Scotch pine from being the most popular of evergreens; for it 
unites every other good quality for planting. This color varies 
from, a grayish to a bluish green, not at all pleasing in itself. The 
leaves are in two’s, from one and a half inches to two and a half 
inches long, twisted, rigid, standing out all around the branches. 
Cones ovate-conical, from two to three inches long. 
Whether the following variety of the Scotch pine, so highly com¬ 
mended, has been cultivated in our nurseries, we do not know; but 
have supposed all the American stock of this tree to be of the com¬ 
mon sort above described. 
The Red-wood Scotch, or Highland Pine. P. s. horizon- 
talis. —This variety is distinguished by the horizontal and drooping 
character of its branches, which tend downward close to the trunk; 
by the lighter and brighter bluish-green color of its leaves, and 
less rugged bark. Sir Walter Scott urged this as the true Scotch 
pine, or at least the variety which develops the noble and pictur¬ 
esque forms that have given the species its high rank, and that the 
common sort “ is an inferior variety, a mean looking tree, but very 
prolific of seed, on which account the nursery gardeners are ena¬ 
bled to raise it in vast quantities.” The highland pine bears com¬ 
paratively few seeds; and the seed gatherers, who are only paid by 
the quantity, naturally collect only from trees the most prolific in 
cones. 
No finely-formed trees of either variety can be produced which 
do not grow from the start in open ground, exposed on all sides to 
the sun and wind. When “ drawn up ” by the shade or contiguity 
of other trees, it speedily forms a lank, ill-branched stem, and rarely 
