2290

ARBORETUM AND IRUTICETUM.

PART III.

are two years m acquir-ing their full growth;they are at first upright,and do not begin todroop till the secondyear. When young, theyhave a very taper figure.

When ripe, they areabout 11 in. in circum-ference at the thickestpart, and vary from 12in,to 16 in. in length. Thescales are lax, roundedat the apex, and per-fectly destitute of pric-kles : the seeds large,

8 lines long, and 4 broad;oval; and, like those ofthe P. Pinea, their ker-nels are sweet, and verypleasant to the taste.

The wing is membranaceous, of a dolabriform figure, and fuliginous colour,about twice as long as the seed; it has an innumerable quantity of minutesinuous vessels, filled with a crimson substance, and forming most beautifulmicroscopic objects. The embryo has 12 or 13 cotyledons. The wholetree produces an abundance of pure amber-coloured resin. Its timber iswhite, soft, and light; it abounds in turpentine reservoirs; and its specificgravity has been ascertained, from a specimen sent to England, to be 0'463.The annual layers are very narrow : in the above specimen, there were 56in the space of in. next the outside. The species to which this pine ismost nearly allied is, undoubtedly, P. Strobus, from which, however, it is ex-tremely different in station, habit, and parts of fructification.” ( Dougl . inLinn. Trans., xv. p. 499.)

Geography, History, Sfc. This species “ covers large districts about 100 milesfrom the ocean, in lat. 43° N., and extends as far to the south as 40°.” It firstcame under the notice of Douglas in August, 1825, while at the head watersof the Multnomah river. In October, 1826, continues Douglas, “ it was inygood fortune to meet with it beyond a range of mountains running in a south-western direction from the Rocky Mountains towards the sea, and terminatingat the Cape Orford of Vancouver. It grows sparingly upon low hills, and theundulating country east of the range of mountains just mentioned, where thesoil consists entirely of pure sand, and in appearance is incapable of supportingvegetation. Here it attains its greatest size, and perfects its fruit in mostabundance. The trees do not form dense forests, as most of the other pineswhich clothe the face of North-west America; but, like P. resinosa, which growsamong them, they are scattered singly over theplains, and may be considered to form a sort ofconnecting link between the gloomy forests of thenorth and the more tropical-looking verdure ofCalifornia .” (Ibid., p. 498.) Plants were raisedof this species in the Horticultural Society’s Oar-den in 1827, and distributed in the following year;but it is remarkable that the greater part of themhave since died, generally when they were about4 ft. or 5 ft. in height. Notwithstanding this, thespecies does not appear to be much more tenderthan P. Ntrobus. The largest existing plant thatwe know of is in the garden of William Wells, Esq., at Redleaf, where, havingbeen sown in 1829, it is 10 ft. 2 in. high. One in the Chiswick Garden, sownthe same year, and of which Jig. 2207. is a portrait, is only 6 ft. 6 in. high.