PINUS LAMBERTIAN A. 
7 
1855, No. 12, p. 452, t. xii.), who defcribes the body in queftion under the name of Pinite, it poffeffes right 
polarifation, and is incapable of fermentation, even after treatment with fulphuric acid. Its analyfis led to 
the formula, C I2 , H I2 , Oi Q . Acetate of lead-oxide ammonia precipitates from its folutions the compound, 
C I2 , H I2 , O io , 4P O. It is ifomeric with Quercite, but differs from that body in cryftalline form, and has 
a greater folubility and fweetnefs. In another paper Berthelot defcribes a large number of fugars and 
acids. Among thefe are the acid and neutral ftearates and benzoates of Pinite. He has further found 
that when thefe compounds are faponified there is obtained the original acid, and not Pinite , but a 
fubftance which gradually paffes into Pinite. The name Pinite is objectionable, as identical in orthography 
with one appellation of a mineral which is overloaded with fynonyms. 
M. Bourfier de la Riviere fays that it is only the old trees which produce this faccharine juice. He 
adds that from the alburnum only refin flows, and that it is from the wood alone that the fugar is procured. 
Mr Gordon feems to have oddly mifapprehended what is related of the refin. He fays the feeds “ are 
ufed for food by the Indians, as well as the refin, which is freely produced by the tree when wounded ; 
roajled as a fub/litute for fugar'.' If he fpeaks of the feeds in the words which are itahcifed, they are ufed 
as food—not as a fubftitute for fugar ; if of the refin, which is or may be ufed as a fubftitute for fugar, it is 
not the refin which is roafted to make it fo, but the tree which is roafted to make it produce the fugary 
refin. Bourfier de la Riviere fays that he lived upon it in the mountains. Douglas fays that the feeds are 
eaten by the natives roafted , or are pounded into coarfe cakes for their winter ftore. Mr William Murray 
faw them making thefe cakes, and found them more elaborate in compofition. Thofe he met with were 
round balls, compofed of the feeds of the Sugar Pine, or of Pinus Sabiniana , mixed with graflhoppers or 
locufts and large acorns (of Quercus denfeflora ?). Mr Murray did not tafte thefe balls or cakes. He had 
no objection to the feeds of the Pines, which were very good, nor to the acorns—he could even have 
managed the locufts ; but he could not overcome his difguft at the filthinefs of the manipulation by the 
fquaws in preparing the “ cakes.” 
As to the goodnefs of the feeds to eat there can be no doubt: we fpeak from perfonal experience ; 
and Douglas, in his paper in the ‘ Linnean TranfaCtions,’ mentions that he had been informed by Mr 
Menzies that, when he was on the coaft of California with Captain Vancouver in 1793, feeds of a large 
Pine, refembling thofe of the Stone Pine, were ferved at the deffert by the Spanifh priefts refident there. 
“ Thefe,” fays he, “ were no doubt the produce of the fpecies now noticed; ” or juft as probably of P. 
Sabiniana , which has a feed fomewhat like it, as well in appearance as tafte. Other animals as well as our- 
felves appreciate the feeds as an article of food. Jeffrey, in one of his communications to the Committee 
of the Edinburgh Oregon Botanical Affociation, fays, “ I am forry to have to relate an accident which 
deprived me of a fine ftock of the feeds of P. Lambertiana. I was encamped one night and had a fmall 
fack of its feeds along with me. During the night a ground rat found them out, and appropriated them all 
except about two dozen.” 
Cultivation, &c .—The quantity of feed fent home by Douglas was fmall. Of the plants reared from 
it two were figured by Loudon in his Arboretum (loc. cit.), one growing in the Arboretum of the Royal 
Horticultural Society at Chifwick, and the other at Red Leaf, Penfhurft, Kent, the feat of William 
Wells, Efq. The former is 28 feet 6 inches in height, but ftill a bufhy tree, retaining the charadter fhown 
in the figure of it given by Loudon two-and-twenty years ago. This fmall amount of growth and bufhy 
charadter is due to the foil at Chifwick, which is very unfavourable to coniferous trees. The tree at Red 
Leaf died in 1845, being then about thirteen years old and 25 feet 6 inches in height. Mr Wells, however, 
has a tree from a branch inarched upon a Weymouth Pine, planted in 1839, an d now about 35 feet high. 
At Caftle Martyr, near Cork, the feat of the Earl of Shannon, there is a plant 35 feet in height and 3 feet 
in circumference at the bafe. It was planted fubfequently to 1845. The climate and foil of that diftridt 
feem peculiarly favourable to the growth of coniferous trees, as will appear from the various references to it 
in the courfe of this work. The geological formation of the country is clay-flate, old red fandftone, and lime- 
r o 1 d ftone ; 
