On rounding the northern shoulder of the mountain, suddenly the whole scene changes. Instead of limb-lopped trunks, one is faced by the dark foliage of the pinsápo pine--a forest monarch whose stately growth strikes one's eye as something conspicuously new. And new indeed it is. For the range of this great Spanish pine (_Abies pinsapo_) is limited not merely to Spain, but actually to this one mountain-range, the Serranía de Ronda--there may exist more remarkable examples of a restricted distribution, but none certainly that we have come across. The pinsápo, moreover, affects even here but three spots: first, San Cristobal itself; secondly, the Sierra de las Nieves, a mountain plainly visible some thirty miles to the eastward (all its northern corries darkened by pinsápos); and, lastly, the Sierra Bermeja on the Mediterranean, distant thirty to thirty-five miles S.S.E. On each of the three the pinsápo grows in forests; on adjacent hills we have observed one or two scattered groups--otherwise this pine is found nowhere else on earth. A curious character of the pinsápo is that it only grows on the northern faces of the hills. The tree possesses remarkable personality. Though one sees a chance specimen grow up straight as a spruce, yet its normal tendency is to "flatten out" on top, whence three, four, even a dozen independent "leaders" spring away, each with equal vigour, and finally form as many distinct vertical trunks, say six or eight separate pines all arising from a common base. To see the pinsápo in its pristine majesty and massiveness, one must ascend beyond the range of charcoal-burners; up there flourish gigantic specimens, some of which we measured (by rough pacing) to encompass ten to fifteen yards of base. These trees grow from screes of broken rock--great blocks of white dolomite; but the deep-searching tap-roots penetrate to black alluvia beneath. Other huge pines found roothold in walls of living rock. The three sketches, made from individual trees (presumed for the purpose to be divested of foliage), illustrate the singular multiple growth described. The foliage of the pinsápo differs from ordinary pine-needles, being rather a series of stiff outstanding spines analogous to those of the Araucaria. They display a crimson efflorescence in March, developing into clusters of red cones by April, and ripening in August to September.[58] [Illustration: PINSÁPO PINES (_Abies pinsapo_) Diagram to show trunk-plan, divested of foliage. Girth at base 30 to 45 feet.]