THE SOFT PINES Leaf bundles in loose, deciduous sheaths. Cone scales usually unarmed. Wood soft, light coloured, close grained.
KeY TO SPECIES A. Leaves 5 in a bundle.
B. Cones long stemmed; scales thin; leaves 3 to 4 inches long.
C. Leaves slender, flexible; cones 5 to 8 inches long. D. Cone scales not recurved at maturity; leaves bluish green. (P. Strobus) WHITE PINE DD. Cone scales recurved at maturity; leaves pale green. (P. strobiformis) ARIZONA WHITE PINE CC. Leaves stout, stiff.
D. Cones 5 to 12 inches long; limbs grey.
(P. monticola) MOUNTAIN PINE DD. Cones 12 to 18 inches long; limbs green.
(P. Lambertiana) SUGAR PINE BB. Cones short stemmed; scales thick; leaves 1 to 2 inches long.
C. Leaf bundles scattered; cones 3 to to inches long, opening at maturity.
(P. flexilis) ROCKY MOUNTAIN WHITE PINE CC. Leaf bundles in crowded clusters.
D. Leaf clusters at ends of twigs; cones not open ing; bark pale. (P. albicaulis) WHITE-BARK PINE DD. Leaf clusters along sides of twig; cone scales with spiny beaks.
E. Spines of cone scales minute, incurved.
(P. Balfouriana) FOXTAIL PINE EE. Spines of cone scales, long, slender.
(P. aristata) BRISTLE-CONE PINE AA. Leaves t to 4 in a bundle, I to 2 inches long; cones globose; seeds nut-like.
B. Bundles 4-leaved, pale, glaucous green.
(P. quadrifolia) NUT PINE BB. Bundles 2 to 3-leaved, dark green.
C. Leaves slender. (P. cembroides) NUT PINE CC. Leaves stout. (P. edulis) NUT PINE BBb. Bundles i-leaved, pale, glaucous green.
(P. monophylla) NUT PINE White Pine (Pinus Strobus, stately tree, too to 120 feet high, conical, with spreading, horizontal branches in whorls of five. Bark grey, furrowed, thick, with broad, scaly ridges. Wood light, soft, close grained, resinous, easily worked. Buds, a strong, terminal, set round by five lateral ones in whorl ; t to inch long, pointed, with thin, pale-brown scales. Leaves evergreen, needle-like, in fives, sheathed at base of bun dle, 3 to 5 inches long, slender, 3-sided, flexible, blue-green. Flowers in June, moncecious; staminate, clustered at base of sea son's shoots, to t inch long, catkin-like, yellowish ; pistillate, subterminal, single or in twos, stemmed, elliptical, pink or pur plish, and scaly, 2 ovules on each scale. Fruit biennial, 5 to io
inches long, slender, stalked, with thin, unarmed scales ; seeds winged. Preferred habitat, good soil, moist woodlands, or up lands. Distribution, Newfoundland to Manitoba; south through Iowa, Illinois and Ohio to northern Georgia ; southern Canada and Eastern States, along Alleghanies to eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. Uses : One of the b8t ornamental conifers and formerly the chief lumber tree in this country.
Pines bear their evergreen leaves in sheathed bundles set on little projecting shelves along the twigs. The sheaths are shed during the spring in all the white pines, and the number of leaves in a bundle is always five. Certain pitch pines have leaves in fives, but the sheaths will be found at the bases of the bundles throughout the season. These 5-leaved pitch pines are all Western trees. In Eastern woods a 5-leaved pine is a white pine, P. Strobus, whether it is a flourishing little sapling, with only three or four whorls of branches coming out from its central stem, or a great forest tree towering above its broad-leaved neighbours, noble and picturesque, though storms have destroyed the symmetry of its youth.
Stroke the leaves of a white-pine branch—they are soft and flexible. As they sway in the wind they are graceful and light; the tree seems decked with plumes of dark blue-green. The young shoots, pale yellowish green, lighten the sombre pine woods, and the clustering catkins, shaking out their abundant pollen, sift gold dust through the whole forest. The pistillate flowers show themselves clustered about the terminal bud, which keeps on growing, leaving them to ripen, through two seasons, into long, slender green cones. The pinkish purple of these tiny cone flowers adds a rich colour to the upper twigs, where they stand erect until autumn. Below them, hanging down with their weight, are the half-grown cones, slim, finger-like and green, with tight, smooth scales, that will turn brown and discharge their ripened seed at the end of their second summer.