28 
North  American  Conifer  ce. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\    January,  1896. 
quality  and  the  durability  of  their  timber.  But  of  great  value,  also, 
are  the  sequoias,  especially  sempervirens,  the  junipers,  thuyas, 
cedars,  chamaecyparids,  spruces,  firs,  hemlocks,  podocarpids  and 
yews.  Some,  as  Juniperus  Virginiana  and  Taxus  baccata,  furnish 
timbers  of  exceeding  durability.  The  species  of  Abies  furnish  wood 
which  is  most  valuable  for  the  manufacture  of  wood  pulp.  The 
bark  of  the  hemlock  spruces  is  of  immense  value  in  the  tanning 
industry,  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  other  species  of  Coniferse  may 
prove  quite  as  useful  in  the  same  way,  when  sufficiently  investi- 
gated. The  order  is  also  the  most  important  of  all  the  natural 
orders  of  plants,  in  its  yield  of  resinous  and  oleoresinous  products. 
Burgundy  pitch,  Canada  pitch,  balsam  of  fir,  Venice  turpentine, 
ordinary  turpentine,  rosin,  oil  of  turpentine,  retinol,  fir  wool  oil,  oil 
•of  savin,  oil  of  juniper,  tar,  and  several  other  valuable  products 
being  obtained  from  the  order. 
PINUS  STROBUS,  L. 
WHITE  PINE,  WEYMOUTH  PINE. 
GENERAL  CHARACTERS. 
In  this  paper  Pinns  Strobus,  Linne,  has  been  studied  as  the  type 
of  the  soft-wood  section  of  the  genus  to  which  it  belongs.  It  is  the 
principal  timber  pine  in  the  great  pine  regions  of  the  Northern 
United  States,  from  Minnesota  eastward  to  the  coast,  and  in  Canada. 
It  is  a  straight-boled  tree,  and  under  favorable  conditions  attains  a 
height  of  175  feet,  and  a  trunk  diameter,  at  the  distance  of  4  feet 
from  the  ground,  of  5  feet.  Its  leaves,  in  fascicles  of  five,  are 
very  slender,  about  3  inches  long,  with  two  flat  and  one  convex 
side,  on  each  of  the  flat  sides  are  two,  or  sometimes  three,  whitish 
lines  on  the  otherwise  deep  green  surface,  the  lines  running  length- 
wise and  parallel  to  each  other  from  base  to  apex  of  the  leaf.  They 
are  the  rows  of  stomata,  the  latter  being  confined  to  the  two  flat 
surfaces.  The  two  angles  formed  by  the  convex  surface  with  the 
flat  ones  are  roughened  by  minute  distant  serrulations. 
The  staminate  flowers  are  one-third  of  an  inch,  or  a  little  more  in 
length,  subtended  by  six  to  eight  involucral  scales  at  the  base ;  the 
fertile  flowers  are  cylindrical  and  on  rather  long  peduncles;  the 
fruiting  cone  is  pendant,  cylindrical,  or  often  somewhat  curved,  and 
frequently  6  inches  in  length,  but  averages  nearer  5  ;  its  scales  are 
but  slightly  thickened  at  the  apophys.s  and  are  smooth. 
