Red Pine Norway Pine
=Habitat and Range.=--In poor soils: sandy plains, dry woods.
Newfoundland and New Brunswick, throughout Quebec and Ontario, to
the southern end of Lake Winnipeg.
Maine,--common, plains, Brunswick (Cumberland county); woods, Bristol
(Lincoln county); from Amherst (western part of Hancock county) and
Clifton (southeastern part of Penobscot county) northward just east of
the Penobsco
river the predominant tree, generally on dry ridges and
eskers, but in Greenbush and Passadumkeag growing abundantly on peat
bogs with black spruce; hillsides and lower mountains about Moosehead,
scattered; New Hampshire,--ranges with the pitch pine as far north as
the White mountains, but is less common, usually in groves of a few to
several hundred acres in extent; Vermont,--less common than P. Strobus
or P. rigida, but not rare; Massachusetts,--still more local, in
stations widely separated, single trees or small groups; Rhode
Island,--occasional; Connecticut,--not reported.
South to Pennsylvania; west through Michigan and Wisconsin to
Minnesota.
=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.
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.=