Leaves stout, flexible, pendant, pale blue-green, marked on each face with numerous rows of pale stomata, 8′—12′ long, deciduous usually in their third and fourth years. Flowers: male yellow; female on stout peduncles, dark purple. Fruit oblong-ovoid, full and rounded at base, pointed, becoming light reddish brown, 6′—10′ long, long-stalked, pendulous, the scales narrowed into a stout incurved sharp hook, strongly reflexed toward the base of the cone and armed with spur-like incurved spines; seeds full and rounded below, somewhat compressed toward the apex, ¾′ long, ⅓′ wide, dark brown or nearly black, with a thick hard shell, encircled by their wings much thickened on the inner rim, obliquely rounded at the broad apex and about ½ length of nuts. A tree, usually 40°—50° but occasionally 80° high, with a trunk 3°—4° in diameter, divided generally 15°—20° above the ground into 3 or 4 thick secondary stems, clothed with short crooked branches pendant below and ascending toward the summit of the tree, and forming an open round-topped head remarkable for the sparseness of its foliage, and stout pale glaucous branchlets, becoming dark brown or nearly black during their second season. Bark of the trunk 1½′—2′ thick, dark brown slightly tinged with red or nearly black and deeply and irregularly divided into thick connected ridges covered with small closely appressed scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, close-grained, brittle, light brown or red with thick nearly white sapwood. Abietine, a nearly colorless aromatic liquid with the odor of oil of oranges, is obtained by distilling the resinous juices. The large sweet slightly resinous seeds formed an important article of food for the Indians of California. Distribution. Scattered singly or in small groups over the dry foothills of western California, ranging from 500° up to 4000° above the sea-level and from the southern slopes of the northern cross ranges to the Tehachapi Mountains and the Sierra de la Liebre; most abundant and attaining its largest size on the eastern foothills of the Sierra Nevada near the centre of the state at elevations of about 2000°; here often the most conspicuous feature of the vegetation. 18. Pinus Coulteri D. Don. Pitch Pine. [Illustration: Fig. 24] Leaves tufted at the ends of the branches, stout, rigid, dark blue-green, marked by numerous bands of stomata on the 3 faces, 6′—12′ long, deciduous during their third and fourth seasons. Flowers: male yellow; female dark reddish brown. Fruit oblong-conic, short-stalked and pendant, 10′—14′ long, becoming light yellow-brown, with thick broad scales terminating in a broad, flat, incurved, hooked claw ½′—1½′ long, gradually opening in the autumn and often persistent on the branches for several years; seeds ellipsoidal, compressed, ½′ long, ¼′—⅓′ wide, dark chestnut-brown, with a thick shell, inclosed by their wings, broadest above the middle, oblique at apex, nearly 1′ longer than the seed, about ⅝′ wide.