THE PINES - FAMILY CONIFERA. Genus PINUS, Duham. Leaves evergreen, of two forms: primary, short, broad al base, scattered; secondary, needle-like, in sheathed bundles. Flowers moncecious, naked; staminate, clustered; pistillate, lateral or subterminal, with spirally arranged scales; ovules, 2 on each scale. Fruit, a woody cone, maturing in 2 or 3 years.
" What the apple is among the fruits, what the oak is among broad-leaved trees of the temperate zone, the pines are among the conifers, excelling all other genera in this most important family in number of species, in fields of distribution in extent of area occupied, in usefulness and importance to the human race." —B. E. Fernow.
Six hundred species and varieties have been described and named in the genus Pinus. They are distributed in vast forests over the northern half of the globe, reaching into the tropics by following mountain chains. The East and West Indian Islands have each their own pines. Out of the hundreds of named kinds about eighty distinct species are now recognised. Half of this number are found in North America. Forests of pine still cover mountain slopes in the western and northern parts of the conti nent. Lumbering has been going on for a century in the Eastern States; more recently the Great Lakes region and the pine forests of the Southern States have been exploited to supply the demand for pine.
The foremost lumber trees in this country, pines have still other important uses. They offer a great variety of trees for pro tective and ornamental planting. Windbreaks from the seashore to the semi-arid prairie, from the low seaboard plain to the mountain's crests, may all be of pine. Arid soil or rich, cold or warm climate, swamp and desert sand—all offer congenial con ditions for some native pine. In the parks of cities, in private • grounds of the rich and the poor, pines are planted for shade and shelter and ornament. Only in very smoky cities, St. Louis and Pittsburg, for instance, do pines with other conifers decline after a few years of growth. It is believed that sulphur and other substances in the noxious gases that constantly pour from great chimneys choke the evergreens. Nobody is able yet to give a final answer to the question. It is now under investigation.
The by-products of pine trees include oil, pitch, turpentine, and rosin, products of the resin that impregnates the wood of pitch pines. Minor products are the seeds of the nut pines, used as food; pine wool, spun from the leaves of certain species; and pine shoots used for Christmas decoration.
All pines are evergreens and cone bearers. They are dis tinguished from other genera of the family Coniferae by bearing their needle-like leaves in clusters of i to 5 leaves, each of which is enclosed at its base by a sheath made of papery scales. No other conifer has this sheath. The soft pines, so called from their soft, light wood, shed their leaf sheaths as soon as the young leaves are fully developed. The pitch pines, so called be cause their heavy, dark-coloured wood is full of resin, retain the leaf sheath until the leaves are shed.
In the lumber trade there is a certain fine scorn of "techni cal names," and a consequent confusion in the use of local and trade names of the kinds of pines. This is unfortunate, for woods that resemble each other so closely as to deceive experi enced men have often very different ways of behaving in use. Lumbermen and carpenters are misled by dependence on trade names, and so are engineers and architects, to the great disad vantage of those whose interests they are supposed to serve in telligently.
" Hard pine" is a carpenter's term applied to pines whose wood is heavy, close and resinous. It includes everything but soft pine among staple lumber pines.
The " hard pines" are P. palustris, P. taeda, P. echinata and P. heterophylla in the South ; P. ponderosa, and P. ponderosa, var. Jeffreyi, in the West, and P. resinosa in the East and North.
" Yellow pine," a very vague and general colour designa tion, includes the Southern hard pines named above, also P. rigida in the East, and P. ponderosa in the West.
" Pitch pine " is a term applied to species whose wood is rich in resin. Chief among these is P. palustria. It includes the other Southern lumber pines and P. rigida in the Eastern States. " Georgia pine " is P. palustris. "North Carolina pine " is P. echinata.
The " soft pines " have soft, light wood, with little resin, easy to work—the carpenter's delight. The principal ones are P. Strobus, in the North and East, P. Lambertiana, of the Pacific coast, and two Rocky Mountain species, P. monticola and P. flexilis.
" Jack pines," used locally for ties and timbers, but not in the regular lumber trade, are small or medium-sized trees : P. P. Virginiana and P. divaricata in the East and North ; P. contorta, var. Murrayana, one in the West.