The Scots fir, Pinus sylvestris (Fig. 31), called _Pin de Genève_ by the French, has a very wide range. It extends eastward and northward from the Sierra Nevada, in Spain, through Europe and Russian Asia; its northern limit approaches the Arctic circle, its southern limit is formed by the great mountain chains of the Alps, Caucasus, and Altai range of Asia. The beautiful blue-green colour of its needles, the fine red-brown tint of its trunk and branches, and the graceful spread of its foliage high up on a few great, unequally-grown branches springing from its tall, bare trunk, are amongst the most picturesque features of English landscape. In the southern counties "clumps" of a dozen or score of these graceful trees are often to be seen on some isolated hilltop in the moorlands, and are associated with poetic tradition and ancient superstition. In the North of Britain they are more frequent as forest. The Scots fir is the only pine tree really native in our land. It is distinguished from several other species of Pinus by having the leaves or needles in bundles of two, and having relatively small oblong cones (2 to 3 inches long) which are borne near the ends of the branches (Fig. 31). The constituent scales of the cone are only slightly thickened, and the surface knob has no prickle. There are two of the common pine trees of the Mediterranean coast (the Riviera and elsewhere), namely, the Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis) and the so-called Corsican or Austrian pine (Pinus Laricio), which agree in the above-given points with the Scots fir, and are, in fact, difficult to distinguish from it, except by general shape, mode of growth, and the colour of the leaves and stem. The needles of the Scots fir are 1½ to 3 inches long, those of P. halepensis 2½ to 3½ inches, and those of P. Laricio 4 to 6 inches long. The Pyrenæan or Calabrian pine is closely similar to these. A very important and abundant pine on the Mediterranean and Biscay coast of France is the Pinaster (Pinus pinaster), often called the "cluster pine," and by the French _Pin des Landes_ and _Pin maritime_ (Fig. 39). It also has its needles, often 6 inches long, in groups of two. It is usually a smaller tree than the others, but in favourable localities attains a height of 80 feet. Its cones are twice as long as those of the Scots fir, often, as at Bournemouth, 4 and even 5 inches long, and its branches are slender in proportion to the trunk, the bark coarse and fissured, and its foliage (as is that of all the two-leaved set except the Scots fir) of a yellowish (not bluish) green. It has been found invaluable in holding sandy land from shifting and breaking up, and is planted for this purpose along the coast of the Landes and in other parts of the world. [Illustration: FIG. 39.--Female Cone of the Pinaster, or Maritime Pine (Pinus pinaster). Drawn of the natural size from a Bournemouth specimen.]