XXXI 
THE PINE FAMILY IS OLD 
I SN’T IT ODD that the cone-bearing trees are old- 
timers under the sun, but that those with broad leaves 
are newcomers! 
Geologists know the relative ages of the different kinds 
of rocks that make up the earth’s crust. They know that 
certain of them were laid down millions of years before 
others. Where there were plants, they left their im¬ 
pressions on the forming rocks, and their pictures were 
thus preserved. 
The world had existed for some time when vegetable 
life first appeared in the water and finally scrambled out 
on the land. Among the earlier plants to leave their im¬ 
pressions on the rocks that were forming were algae. An¬ 
other that appeared in the long ago was the cat-tail that 
still grows in modern marshes. Ferns were an early form, 
and tree ferns were among the first plants to lift them¬ 
selves high above the ground. 
Then came the cone-bearers. Evidence of the existence 
of these trees is found in early formations, along with evi¬ 
dence of cat-tails and ferns. They are, in fact, a primitive 
tribe, in a way, much less highly developed than is the 
oak or the sycamore. They occupy a place in the vege¬ 
table world that is somewhat like that of the lizard and 
the kangaroo in the animal world. They are of a once 
ruling race which is well along toward the discard. 
The cone-bearing trees, for example, have no well- 
62 
