FOXTAIL PINE (_Pinus balfouriana_) owes its name to the clustering of its needles round the ends of the branches, bristling like a fox’s tail. The needles are seldom more than one and one-half inches in length, and are in clusters of fives. They cling to the branches ten or fifteen years before falling. The cones are about three inches long, and are armed with slender spines. The tree is strictly a mountain species and grows at a higher altitude than any other tree in the United States, although whitebark pine is not much behind it. It reaches its best development near Mt. Whitney, California, where it is said to grow at an altitude of 15,000 feet above sea level. It has been officially reported at Farewell Gap, in the Sierra Nevada mountains, at an altitude of 13,000. At high altitudes it is scrubby and distorted, but in more favorable situations it may be sixty feet high and two in diameter. On high mountains it is generally not more than thirty feet high and ten inches in diameter. It is of remarkably slow growth, and comparatively small trees may be 200 or 300 years old. The wood is moderately light, is soft, weak, brittle. Resin passages are few and very small. The wood is satiny and susceptible of a good polish, and would be valuable if abundant. The seeds are winged and the wind scatters them widely, but most of them are lost on barren rocks or drifts of eternal snow. The untoward circumstances under which the tree must live prevent generous reproduction. It holds its own but can gain no new foothold on the bleak and barren heights which form its environment. The dark green of its foliage makes the belts of foxtail pines conspicuous where they grow above the timber line of nearly all other trees. Its range is confined to a few of the highest mountains of California, particularly about (but not on) Mt. Shasta and among the clusters of peaks about the sources of Kings and Kern rivers. Those who travel and camp among the highest mountains of California are often indebted to foxtail pine for their fuel. Near the upper limit of its range it frequently dies at the top, and stands stripped of bark for many years. The dead wood, which frequently is not higher above the ground than a man’s head, is broken away by campers for fuel, and it is often the only resource. [Illustration] LONGLEAF PINE [Illustration: LONGLEAF PINE] LONGLEAF PINE (_Pinus Palustris_) Longleaf is generally considered to be the most important member of the group of hard or pitch pines in this country[2]. It is known by many names in different parts of its range, and outside of its range where the wood is well known.