(_Pinus Resinosa_)
Early explorers who were not botanists mistook this tree for Norway
spruce, and gave it the name which has since remained in nearly all
parts of its range. It is called red pine also, and this name is
strictly descriptive. The brown or red color of the bark is instantly
noticed by one who sees the tree for the first time. In the Lake States
it has been called hard pine for the purpose of distinguishing it from
the softer white pine with which it is associated. In England they call
it Canadian red pine, because the principal supply in England is
imported from the Canadian provinces.
Its chief range lies in the drainage basin of the St. Lawrence river,
which includes the Great Lakes and the rivers which flow into them.
Newfoundland forms the eastern and Manitoba the western outposts of this
species. It is found as far south as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,
northern Ohio, central Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. It conforms
pretty generally to the range of white pine but does not accompany that
species southward along the Appalachian mountain ranges across West
Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Where it was left to
compete in nature’s way with white pine, the contest was friendly, but
white pine got the best of it. The two species grew in intermixture, but
in most instances white pine had from five to twenty trees to Norway’s
one. As a survivor under adversity, however, the Norway pine appears to
surpass its great friendly rival, at least in the Lake States where the
great pineries once flourished and have largely passed away. Solitary or
small clumps of Norway pines are occasionally found where not a white
pine, large or small, is in sight.
The forest appearance of Norway pine resembles the southern yellow
pines. The stand is open, the trunks are clean and tall, the branches
are at the top. The Norway’s leaves are in clusters of two, and are five
or six inches long. They fall during the fourth or fifth year. Cones are
two inches long, and when mature, closely resemble the color of the
tree’s bark, that is, light chestnut brown. Exceptionally tall Norway
pines may reach a height of 150 feet, but the average is seventy or
eighty, with diameters of from two to four. Young trees are limby, but
early in life the lower branches die and fall, leaving few protruding
stubs or knots. It appears to be a characteristic that trunks are seldom
quite straight. They do not have the plumb appearance of forest grown
white pine and spruce.
The wood of Norway pine is medium light, its strength and stiffness
about twenty-five per cent greater than white pine, and it is moderately
soft. The annual rings are rather wide, indicating rapid growth. The
bands of summerwood are narrow compared with the springwood, which gives
a generally light color to the wood, though not as light as the wood of
white pine. The resin passages are small and fairly numerous. The
sapwood is thick, and the wood is not durable in contact with the soil.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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