Scrub Pine Gray Pine Spruce Pine Jack Pine
=Habitat and Range.=--Sterile, sandy soil: lowlands, boggy plains, rocky
slopes.
Nova Scotia, northwesterly to the Athabasca river, and northerly
down the Mackenzie to the Arctic circle.
Maine,--Traveller mountain and Grand lake (G. L. Goodale); Beal's island
on Washington county coast, Harrington, Orland, and Cape Rosier (C. G.
Atkins); Schoodic peninsula in Gouldsboro, a forest 3
feet high (F. M.
Day, E. L. Rand, et al.); Flagstaff (Miss Kate Furbush); east branch
of Penobscot (Mrs. Haines); the Forks (Miss Fanny E. Hoyt); Lake Umbagog
(Wm. Brewster); New Hampshire,--around the shores of Lake Umbagog, on
points extending into the lake, rare (Wm. Brewster in lit., 1899);
Welch mountains (Bull. Torr. Bot. Club, XVIII, 150); Vermont,--rare,
but few trees at each station; Monkton in Addison county (R. E.
Robinson); Fairfax, Franklin county (Bates); Starkesboro (Pringle).
West through northern New York, northern Illinois, and Michigan to
Minnesota.
=Habit.=--Usually a low tree, 15-30 feet high and 6-8 inches in diameter
at the ground, but under favorable conditions, as upon the wooded points
and islands of Lake Umbagog, attaining a height of 50-60 feet, with a
diameter of 10-15 inches. Extremely variable in habit. In thin soils and
upon bleak sites the trunk is for the most part crooked and twisted, the
head scrubby, stunted, and variously distorted, resembling in shape and
proportions the pitch pine under similar conditions. In deeper soils,
and in situations protected from the winds, the stem is erect, slender,
and tapering, surmounted by a stately head with long, flexible branches,
scarcely less regular in outline than the spruce. Foliage
yellowish-green, bunched at the ends of the branchlets.
=Bark.=--Bark of trunk in old trees dark brown, rounded-ridged,
rough-scaly at the surface; branchlets dark purplish-brown, rough with
the persistent bases of the fallen leaves; season's shoots
yellowish-green, turning to reddish-brown.
=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Branch-buds light brown, ovate, apex acute or
rounded, usually enclosed in resin.
Leaves in twos, divergent from a short close sheath, about 1 inch in
length and scarcely 1/12 inch in width, yellowish-green, numerous,
stiff, curved or twisted, cross-section showing two fibrovascular
bundles; outline narrowly linear; apex sharp-pointed; outer surface
convex, inner concave or flat.
=Inflorescence.=--June. Sterile flowers at the base of the season's
shoots, clustered, oblong-rounded: fertile flowers along the sides or
about the terminal buds of the season's shoots, single, in twos or in
clusters; bracts ovate, roundish, purplish.
=Fruit.=--Cones often numerous, 1-2 inches long, pointing in the general
direction of the twig on which they grow, frequently curved at the tip,
whitish-yellow when young, and brown at maturity; scales when mature
without prickles, thickened at the apex; outline very irregular but in
general oblong-conical. The open cones, which are usually much
distorted, with scales at base closed, have a similar outline.
=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy in New England; slow growing and hard to
transplant; useful in poor soil; seldom offered by nurserymen or
collectors. Propagated from seed.
1. Branch with sterile flowers.
2. Stamen, front view.
3. Stamen, top view.
4. Branch with fertile flowers.
5. Ovuliferous scale with ovules, inner side.
6. Fruiting branch.
7. Open cone.
8, 9. Variant leaves.
10, 11. Cross-sections of leaves.
Pinus resinosa, Ait.