ScruB PINE, JERSEY— or VIRGINIAN PINE. 
Tree 10-15 m. high; branches spreading or sometimes 
drooping, the younger pale-green or purplish, glaucous ; 
leaves twisted, serrulate, usually of a yellowish green 
color; cones 4 cm. or longer, the scales armed with slen- 
der, recurved prickles. 
Porming forests throughout our resion 
particularly on sandy soil. 
This species varies much in size according to its loca- 
tion much in the manner of its relative P. sylvestris of 
Europe. Along the windswept Baltic the latter species 
is undersized, has gnarled branches, while some miles 
inland it approaches our ?. Zaeda in stature. 
P. sylvestris L. Sp. Pl. 1418. 
Readily distinguished from the preceding species by 
its broader and somewhat longer leaves, its smaller cones 
(3 cm. or longer); the scales are armed with minute 
prickles. Common in cultivation. 
A century ago or even later, torches were made from 
the Pines [ P. sylvestris]. In Sweden at Yule-tide the 
church-goers, guided by crackling torches, made their 
way through the snow to the village church. The Yule- 
mass beginning long before dawn, the good people added 
to the weird, not always star-lit night of Scandinavia, 
these witch-flames, only to cast them all into a big heap— 
making a brilliant bonfire in the church-yard. The 
custom of making torches from the resinous wood of the 
pine is prehistoric, Even in Mythology it had its place 
for the poet sings of the queen fleeing to Bacchus: 
73 
