Handbook of the Trees of New EnglandBrooks, Henry M. (Henry Mason)
History
Handbook of the Trees of New England
Brooks, Henry M. (Henry Mason)
Trees -- New England; Trees -- North America
=Habit.=--The most beautiful of the New England pines, 50-75 feet high,
with a diameter of 2-3 feet at the ground; reaching in Maine a height of
100 feet and upwards; trunk straight, scarcely tapering; branches low,
stout, horizontal or scarcely declined, forming a broad-based, rounded
or conical head of great beauty when young, becoming more or less
irregular with age; foliage of a rich dark green, in long dense tufts at
the ends of the branches.
=Bark.=--Bark of trunk reddish-brown, in old trees marked by flat ridges
which separate on the surface into thin, flat, loose scales; branchlets
rough with persistent bases of leaf buds; season's shoots stout,
orange-brown, smooth.
=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Leading branch-buds conical, about 3/4
inch long, tapering to a sharp point, reddish-brown, invested with
rather loose scales.
Foliage leaves in twos, from close, elongated, persistent, and
conspicuous sheaths, about 6 inches long, dark green, needle-shaped,
straight, sharply and stiffly pointed, the outer surface round and the
inner flattish, both surfaces marked by lines of minute pale dots.
=Inflorescence.=--Sterile flowers clustered at the base of the season's
shoots, oblong, 1/2-3/4 inch long: fertile flowers single or few, at the
ends of the season's shoots.
=Fruit.=--Cones near extremity of shoot, at right angles to the stem,
maturing the second year, 1-3 inches long, ovate to oblong conical; when
opened broadly oval or roundish; scales not hooked or pointed, thickened
at the apex.
=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy in New England; a tall, dark-foliaged
evergreen, for which there is no substitute; grows rapidly in all
well-drained soils and in exposed inland or seashore situations; seldom
disfigured by insects or disease; difficult to transplant and not common
in nurseries. Propagated from seed.
[Illustration: PLATE V.--Pinus resinosa.]
1. Branch with sterile flowers.
2. Stamen, front view.
3. Stamen, top view.
4. Branch with fertile flowers and one-year-old cones.
5. Bract and ovuliferous scale, outer side.
6. Ovuliferous scale with ovules, inner side.
7. Fruiting branch showing cones of three different seasons.
8. Seeds with cone-scale.
9, 10. Cross-sections of leaves.
= Pinus sylvestris, L.=
SCOTCH PINE (sometimes incorrectly called the Scotch fir).
Indigenous in the northern parts of Scotland and in the Alps, and from
Sweden and Norway, where it forms large forests eastward throughout
northern Europe and Asia.
At Southington, Conn., many of these trees, probably originating from an
introduced pine in the vicinity, were formerly scattered over a rocky
pasture and in the adjoining woods, a tract of about two acres in
extent. Most of these were cut down in 1898, but the survivors, if left
to themselves, will doubtless multiply rapidly, as the conditions have
proved very favorable (C. H. Bissell _in lit._, 1899).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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