Pinecone

“ Nothing can be more cheerful in scenery than the occasional groups of Pines which have come up spontaneously on the bald hills near our coast, elsewhere a dreary waste of gray rocks, stunted shrubbery, and prostrate Juniper. In the forest the White Pine constitutes the very sanctuary of Nature, its tall pillars extending into the clouds, and its broad canopy of foliage mixing with the vapors that descend in the storm. ”

“ The lodge-pole pine (Pinus contorta, var. Murrayana) lives an adventurous frontier life, and of the six hundred kinds of North American trees no other has so many pioneer characteristics. This species strikingly exhibits some of the necessary requisites in trees that extend or maintain the forest-frontier. The characteristics which so largely contribute to its success and enable it to succeed through the agency of fire are its seed-hoarding habit and the ability of its seedling to thrive best in recently fire-cleaned earth, in the full glare of the sun. ”

“ Remarkable among Pines for the size and weight of its cones, many times heavier than the longer cones of P. Lambertiana, illustrating the great change that the cone-tissues undergo in the gradual evolution of the species. It is a tree with dark-green foliage, growing from northern Lower California over the mountains of southern California to the Santa Lucia range and to Mt. Diablo. It is of no value except for fuel and for its large nuts. It is best recognized by its seed. ”

“ Scarcely a specimen of any other tree is to be found associated with the pine. But there are some thickets of the little saw palmettos and a magnificent assemblage of tall grasses, their splendid panicles waving grandly in the warm wind, and making low tuneful changes in the glistening light that is flashed from their bent stems.
Not a pine, not a palm, in all this garden excels these stately grass plants in beauty of wind-waving gestures. Here are panicles that are one mass of refined purple; others that have flowers as yellow as ripe oranges, and stems polished and shining like steel wire. ”

“ Pinus attenuata is a small, slender, arrowy tree, with pale green leaves in threes, clustered flowers half an inch long, brownish yellow and crimson, and cones whorled in conspicuous clusters around the branches and also around the trunk. The cones never fall off or open until the tree dies. They are about four inches long, exceedingly strong and solid, and varnished with hard resin forming a waterproof and almost worm and squirrel proof package, in which the seeds are kept fresh and safe during the lifetime of the tree. ”

“ Only a few pines bear anything resembling a cone. In the case of the red pine its fruit is a fleshy, acorn-like cup, brilliantly red with a blue-black seed embedded in it; in the black pine it is a small-black plum with one seed ”

“ But in cultivation the red pine holds its own for its quick growth, its hardiness, its lusty vigor and its beauty of color contrasts. It grows on sterile ground exposed to the sea, forming groves of great beauty where other pines would languish and die. For shelter belts, inland, it is equally dependable, and as specimen trees in parks and gardens it has few equals. At no season of the year does it lose its fresh look of health. Young trees come readily from seed, and throughout their lives they are unusually free from injuries by insects and fungi. ”

“ So it is with leguminous plants, as beans and peas. In other trees, however, the fruit is a substance covering and enclosing the seed, as the pulp of the apple, the pear, and the orange. Now, with regard to the pines, they are nut-bearing trees, and their seed is at the same time their fruit.’
“‘But, mamma, you do not mean that any one could eat those rough things that grow upon pine-trees?’
“‘Those rough things you speak of are the cones. They are only the sheaths that protect the seeds during a certain period of the year. ”

“ In Mexico, for example, where snow-capped mountains lie on subtropical table-lands and extremes of temperature are in juxtaposition, the conditions are favorable for the production of species with heteromerous fascicles, and the number of leaves in the fascicle possesses often climatic rather than specific significance.
Among conifers, the leaf of Pinus attains extraordinary length with great variation, from 5 cm. or less to 50 cm. or more, the maximum for each species being usually much more than twice the minimum. Climate is the predominating influence ”

“ Leaves binate, from 12 to 16 cm. long, the epiderm thick, hypoderm of two or three rows of cells; resin-ducts medial or with an occasional external duct. Conelets mucronate toward the apex. Cones from 3 to 6 cm. long, ovate-conic, symmetrical; apophyses lustrous nut-brown, transversely carinate, the umbo unarmed.
This Pine is known to me through Mayr's description and a single dried specimen. The smooth cortex of young trees distinguishes it from all other east-Asiatic Hard Pines. Mayr includes under this species the Pine of Hong Kong. ”

“ Unlike other Southern pines, common to Texas, this species grows in a “grass” stage for 2 to 5 years during which time it resembles a clump of grass. Once longleaf pine starts its height growth, it grows rapidly.
The “FRUIT”, a cone bur, is 6 to 10 inches long, and slightly curved, the thick scales armed with small curved prickles. The cones usually fall soon after the seed ripens, leaving their bases attached to the twigs.
The WOOD is heavy, hard, strong, tough and durable. It is used for construction. ”

“ Thirty-nine of the seventy known species of pine are found in the United States. These with their woods are separated into two groups known as hard and soft pines. The Dantzic or Northern pine (Pinus silvestris) is the principal European species. [p131]
FOOTNOTE
[72] The roots of most species die with cutting of trees. There is no power of producing new shoots. (The pitch pine (Pinus rigida) is an exception to this rule.) Seeds also have short-lived vitality. Trees are easily raised from fresh seeds. ”

“ Again the forest pageant changes. There are groves of pine stricken with hoary age, bearded like patriarchs with long, pendent streamers of colourless moss;285 then comes a young growth of pine, fore-doomed to early death which already shows in the bronze of premature decay. It is a beautiful spot, nevertheless, balsam-sweet and strewn with needles that nurture violets of yellow and purple, twin flowers and Queen's Cups. ”

“ Fifty or more scales has each cone, a hundred or more seeds, if the fertilization has been perfect, are ripe and ready to go forth and produce other pine trees. In early September the sap begins to recede from these ripe cones, the scales lose their green plumpness and begin to dry and curl back toward the base of the cone. This gives the seed eating birds, the siskins, the pine grosbeaks and especially the crossbills their best opportunity and they eagerly pluck out such seeds as the narrow openings will give them a chance at. ”

“ The handsomest of our pitch pines is the red pine, whose dark green leaves are six inches long, and cluster in twos upon the twigs. The bark, the wood, and the bud scales are all red. The cones are from one to three inches long, with thickened scales which have no spines. The tree grows into a broad pyramid, branched to the ground, with stout twigs, and luxuriant foliage. The symmetry and vigour of growth makes this red pine a handsomer tree than the ragged, discouraged-looking pitch pines. It is well for the landscape that its wood is very disappointing. ”

“ Pinus.—Perhaps no Conifer adds so much to the beauty of the landscape in winter as the Pine. All the species should be raised from seeds, and any green or glaucous varieties can also be propagated in the same way if seeds can be obtained. The golden, dwarf, and variegated Pines must be grafted on the species they are varieties of. ”

“ The white pine, growing in the fields, or in open glades in the woods, is totally different from the true forest-tree, both in general aspect and in quality of wood. Its stem is much shorter, its top less tapering, its foliage denser and more inclined to gather into tufts, its branches more numerous and of larger diameter, its wood shows much more distinctly the divisions of annual growth, is of coarser grain, harder and more difficult to work into mitre-joints. ”

“ The seed of this little pine, together with a score or more of others, grew in a cone out near the end of the pine-tree limb. This pine was on a mountain several miles from the fire-ruined slope, when one windy autumn day some time after the seeds were ripe, the cone began to open its fingers and the seeds came dropping out. The 176 seed of this baby tree was one of these, and when it tumbled out of the cone the wind caught it, and away it went over trees, rocks, and gulches, whirling and dancing in the autumn sunlight. ”

“ In mountainous countries, where there are warm sheltered valleys with rich soil below cold barren ledges, the most variable Pines are found. The western species of North America, for instance, are much more variable than the eastern species, while in Mexico, a tropical country with snow-capped mountains, the variation is greatest.
Therefore in the limitation of species undue importance should not be given to characters responsive to environment, such as the dimensions of leaf or cone, the number of leaves in the fascicle, etc. ”

“ With all serotinous species that I have seen, some of the trees open their cones at maturity, others at indefinite intervals. That is to say, the seed of a prolific year is not at the mercy of a single, 16perhaps unfavorable season. The chances of successful germination are much increased by the intermittent seed-release peculiar to these Pines. Such a method of dissemination must accrue to the advantage of a species. In other words, this intermittent dissemination and the oblique form of cone with its perfected tissues all mark the highest development of the genus. ”

“ Visitors came from a distance to view the flower-beds and eat my green peas, and I really think that I grew as fine pineapples and bananas as were produced anywhere. The pineapple of good stock and ripened on the plant is, I think, the most exquisite of all fruits. A really ripe pine contains no fibre. You cut the top off and sup the delicious mushy contents with a spoon.
In such a hot, steamy climate as we had in these tea districts, the rapidity of growth of vegetation is, of course, remarkable. ”

“ Here it is succeeded by the hardy Two-leaved Pine, which is speedily joined by the taller Yellow and Mountain Pines. These, with the burly juniper, and shimmering aspen, rapidly grow larger as the sunshine becomes richer, forming groves that block the view; or they stand more apart here and there in picturesque groups, that make beautiful and obvious harmony with the rocks and with one another. Blooming underbrush becomes abundant,—azalea, spiraea, and the brier-rose weaving fringes for the streams, and shaggy rugs to relieve the stern, unflinching rock-bosses. ”

“ Could a man have a few of these on his farm anywhere in New England today they would be worth more than any other crop the centuries could have raised for him.
The youngest pine seedlings hide so securely in the pasture grass and under the low bushes that rarely does one notice them during the first summer's growth. By the end of that time they are singularly, to my mind, like fairy palm trees, planted in the gardens where the little folk stroll on midsummer nights. ”

“ The first is the gnarled and picturesque pitch pine that grows on worthless land, and thrives in patches along the sea coast, where other evergreens are unsuccessful. The rough, rigid branches which spring from the short trunks of these trees carry a burden of blackening cones which give them a very untidy look when the trees are small. When they reach fifty or seventy-five feet in height, a certain nobility and picturesqueness of expression challenge our admiration, and the clusters of cones are not at all objectionable; indeed they heighten the tree’s beauty. ”

“ This species, which is a true Pine, has the leaves very slender, five together, with very short sheaths, and is further characterized by its cylindrical, pendulous cones, which are longer than the leaves, and have their scales lax. It grows in rich soil, in all parts of the United States from Canada to Virginia, and affords the best timber for masts, as well as for other purposes. ”

“ When the seed is ripe, the cone opens as shown at (d) , and the seeds falling out are carried away by the wind. When the211 seed is sown and begins to germinate, the young plant sends down a root, and pushes through the ground its upright shoot, which has six cotyledons, bearing the husk of the seed upon their tip. All the species of the genus Pinus agree with the Scotch Pine in the construction of their flowers, and they differ from each other principally in their cones, and in the number of leaves which they have in a sheath. ”

“ But that species which is preëminently successful in bringing back the forest to a burned-over area is the lodge-pole pine. It produces seeds each year and commonly hoards them for many years. Its seeds are light, winged, and easily carried by the wind. As they are frequently released by fire, they are sown at the most opportune time, scattered in profusion, and, in windy weather, transported long distances. ”

“ The black pine is another illustration of that curious difference between the old and the young in the same tree. It first appears with two cotyledons, as in any broad-leaved tree, and grows up with a drooping, almost weeping, habit. At this stage it bears scattered leaves of a coppery tint, and was for long regarded as a distinct species, till trees showing both stages of development in the same specimen were found. In sixteen to twenty years the branches begin to grow upright and "spiky," and become covered with dark-green, very narrow leaves. ”