WHITE PINE (Pinus strobus, Linn.). 100 to 125 feet. Handsome evergreen tree, the central shaft bearing regular whorls of horizontal branches, five in a whorl. Branches smooth, ending in flexible twigs clothed with blue-green plumes of foliage. Bark gray, furrowed between broad, scaly ridges. Wood soft, fine-grained, resinous, creamy white, easy to work. Buds scaly, set in 5's around a stronger bud, the leader, that prolongs the branch. Leaves 3 to 5 inches long, needle-like, in bundles of five, in a basal sheath of thin scales. Flowers moncecious: staminate, clustered catkins, discharging yellow pollen dust in June; pistillate pinkish or purple cones, single or paired, near ends of shoots, erect. Fruit cones, 5 to 8
inches long, with thin, unarmed scales, pendent, opening at end of second summer to release two winged seeds under each scale. Dist.: Newfoundland to Manitoba; south to Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia. Once the chief lumber tree of the country, but now scarce, from the cutting of virgin forests. Much planted as an ornamental conifer.