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ARBORETUM AND FRUTJCETUM.

PART 111 .

is nothing more than the P. serotina of Miehaux, but Lambert thinks it a va-riety of P. rigida.

Description. A lofty tree, often, in America ,upwards of 80 ft. high, with a trunk sometimesclear of branches to the height of 50 ft., and from2 ft. to 3 ft. in diameter, with a wide-spreadinghead. The leaves are broad, pointed, flat on theupper surface, and forming a ridge below; of afine light green, with a sheath long and whitish atfirst, but becoming short, thick, and brown whenold. The cones are about 4 in. in length ; and thescales terminate in processes which have the formof an elongated pyramid, somewhat in the mannerof P. Pinaster; but the apex of the pyramidterminates in a thick sharp prickle, somewhat inthe manner of P. pungens, and turned upwards.

When the cone opens, the elongation of the pro-cess contracts laterally, and it then assumes theform of a regular rhomboid. The timber is said by Miehaux to have a largeproportion of sap wood, which arises from the rapid growth of the tree,and the consequent thickness of its annual layers. In England, in theclimate of London , P. 7'ae'da grows vigorously, there being large trees at Syonand at Kew, which, after being 50 years planted, produce shoots of from 9 in.to 1 ft. every year. At Dropmore, a tree, of which Jig. 2122. is a portrait toa scale of 1 in. to 12ft.,after being 41 years planted, was, in 1837, 37 ft. high.

Geography and History. P. 7’ae'da, according to Pursh, is found in bar-

ren sandy situations, from Florida to Virginia . All the woods in thesouthern states, he says, seem to be seeded with it; for, when any piece ofclear land is neglected for any length of time, it is speedily covered with thisspecies ; and hence its name, amongst the inhabitants, of Oldfield pine. It isdifficult, and in some cases almost impracticable, he adds, to recover the landswhich have been overrun with young pines of this species, as the ground ap-pears to have lost all fertile properties for any other vegetable than thesetrees. Miehaux, whose account Pursh characterises as very correct and in-structive, says that P. Pae'da is found in thelower part of Virginia , and in the districts ofNorth Carolina situated north-east of the ri-ver of Cape Fear, over an extent of nearly 200miles ; always growing in dry sandy soil. Onspots consisting of red clay mixed with gravel,it is supplanted by the yellow pine (P. mitisMichx.), and by different species of oak ; thetwo pines regularly alternating according tothe varieties in the soil; and frequently vanish-ing and reappearing at intervals of three orfour miles. “ In the same parts of Virginia, ” headds, “ this species exclusively occupies landsthat have been exhausted by cultivation; and,amid forests of oak, tracts of 100 or 200 acresare not unfrequently seen covered with thrivingyoung pines. In the more southern states, itis the most common species after the long-leaved pine (P. australis ) ; but it grows onlyin the branch swamps, or long narrow marshesthat intersect the pine barrens, and near thecreeks and rivers, where the soil is of middlingfertility, and susceptible of improvement: suchis the vicinity of Charleston , in South Caro-

vm .