Cornell Nature-Study Leaflets: Being a selection, with revision, from the teachers' leaflets, home nature-study lessons, junior naturalist monthlies and other publications from the College of Agriculture, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1896-1904New York State College of Agriculture
History
Cornell Nature-Study Leaflets: Being a selection, with revision, from the teachers' leaflets, home nature-study lessons, junior naturalist monthlies and other publications from the College of Agriculture, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1896-1904
New York State College of Agriculture
Natural history; Nature study
There are but two leaves in a cluster on these kinds of pines and we
shall find that the sheath which incloses the base of the leaf-cluster
is more conspicuous than in either the white or the pitch pine. Do the
leaves persist in the Scotch and Austrian pines longer than they do in
the others we have examined? Study the cones of these and other pines.
[Illustration: _Fig. 238. Scotch pine. Half natural size._]
The Scotch and Austrian pines are not native to this country, but are
much grown for ornament. They can be found in almost any park and in
many other places where ornamental trees are grown.
THE NORWAY SPRUCE.
The leaves of spruce trees are borne very differently from those of the
pines. Instead of being in clusters of two or more, they are single and
without a sheath at the base; neither are there scale-like bodies on the
branches where the leaves are borne. Notice, too, that the leaves have a
very short stem or petiole.
The leaves of the Norway spruce are about one inch long, although the
length varies more or less in different parts of the tree and in
different trees. They are rather stiff and rigid and sharp-pointed. In a
general way, the leaves are four-sided, though indistinctly so.
It will be interesting to study the position which the leaves take on
the branches. A hasty glance might give us the impression that the
leaves are not produced on the under side of the branches; but a more
careful examination will convince us that there are nearly as many on
the under side as on the upper. The leaves are all pointing outward from
the branch and as nearly upward as is possible. In other words, the
leaves grow toward the light.
[Illustration: _Fig. 239. Austrian pine. One-third natural size._]
We must not forget to see how long the leaves of the Norway spruce
persist and to find out when the leaf-scars disappear. We can find
leaves that must surely be six or seven years old and sometimes we can
find them even older than this. The leaf scars, too, remain a long time.
The falling of the leaves is illustrated in Fig. 240. It shows the
extremities of a limb which is eight years old. The part between the tip
and A is last season's growth; between A and B it is two years old; and
beyond B is a part that grew three seasons ago. The section beyond C is
six years old; from C to D is seven years of age. The four years' growth
of this limb not shown in the drawing was as densely covered with
foliage as is the part shown in the upper figure; but there are not many
leaves between C and D (seven years old) and none on the eight-year-old
wood (except those on the branchlets, and these are younger).
The cone of the Norway spruce is nearly as long as that of the white
pine, but it is not so rough and coarse as the white pine cone is. The
cones are usually borne on the tips of small branchlets, although
occasionally one is borne in the manner shown in Fig. 241. The cones
usually fall the first winter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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