Part 2 (2/2)

South to Pennsylvania; west through Michigan and Wisconsin to Minnesota.

=Habit.=--The most beautiful of the New England pines, 50-75 feet high, with a diameter of 2-3 feet at the ground; reaching in Maine a height of 100 feet and upwards; trunk straight, scarcely tapering; branches low, stout, horizontal or scarcely declined, forming a broad-based, rounded or conical head of great beauty when young, becoming more or less irregular with age; foliage of a rich dark green, in long dense tufts at the ends of the branches.

=Bark.=--Bark of trunk reddish-brown, in old trees marked by flat ridges which separate on the surface into thin, flat, loose scales; branchlets rough with persistent bases of leaf buds; season's shoots stout, orange-brown, smooth.

=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Leading branch-buds conical, about 3/4 inch long, tapering to a sharp point, reddish-brown, invested with rather loose scales.

Foliage leaves in twos, from close, elongated, persistent, and conspicuous sheaths, about 6 inches long, dark green, needle-shaped, straight, sharply and stiffly pointed, the outer surface round and the inner flattish, both surfaces marked by lines of minute pale dots.

=Inflorescence.=--Sterile flowers cl.u.s.tered at the base of the season's shoots, oblong, 1/2-3/4 inch long: fertile flowers single or few, at the ends of the season's shoots.

=Fruit.=--Cones near extremity of shoot, at right angles to the stem, maturing the second year, 1-3 inches long, ovate to oblong conical; when opened broadly oval or roundish; scales not hooked or pointed, thickened at the apex.

=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy in New England; a tall, dark-foliaged evergreen, for which there is no subst.i.tute; grows rapidly in all well-drained soils and in exposed inland or seash.o.r.e situations; seldom disfigured by insects or disease; difficult to transplant and not common in nurseries. Propagated from seed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE V.--Pinus resinosa.]

1. Branch with sterile flowers.

2. Stamen, front view.

3. Stamen, top view.

4. Branch with fertile flowers and one-year-old cones.

5. Bract and ovuliferous scale, outer side.

6. Ovuliferous scale with ovules, inner side.

7. Fruiting branch showing cones of three different seasons.

8. Seeds with cone-scale.

9, 10. Cross-sections of leaves.

= Pinus sylvestris, L.=

SCOTCH PINE (sometimes incorrectly called the Scotch fir).

Indigenous in the northern parts of Scotland and in the Alps, and from Sweden and Norway, where it forms large forests eastward throughout northern Europe and Asia.

At Southington, Conn., many of these trees, probably originating from an introduced pine in the vicinity, were formerly scattered over a rocky pasture and in the adjoining woods, a tract of about two acres in extent. Most of these were cut down in 1898, but the survivors, if left to themselves, will doubtless multiply rapidly, as the conditions have proved very favorable (C. H. Bissell _in lit._, 1899).

Like _P. resinosa_ and _P. Banksiana_, it has its foliage leaves in twos, with neither of which, however, is it likely to be confounded; aside from the habit, which is quite different, it may be distinguished from the former by the shortness of its leaves, which are less than 2 inches long, while those of _P. resinosa_ are 5 or 6; and from the latter by the position of its cones, which point outward and downward at maturity, while those of _P. Banksiana_ follow the direction of the twig.

Picea nigra, Link.

_Picea Mariana, B. S. P. (including Picea brevifolia, Peck)._

BLACK SPRUCE. SWAMP SPRUCE. DOUBLE SPRUCE. WATER SPRUCE.

=Habitat and Range.=--Swamps, sphagnum bogs, sh.o.r.es of rivers and ponds, wet, rocky hillsides; not uncommon, especially northward, on dry uplands and mountain slopes.

Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia, westward beyond the Rocky mountains, extending northward along the tributaries of the Yukon in Alaska.

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