F
P I N E T U M B R I T A N N I C U M.
magnified section, in which the hypoderm, the rcsin canal, and the liundle of fibres arc all shewn. Male
catkins (fig. 6) erect, conico-ovate, i ahat teaslc-shaped, growing in clusters; pedui
vellowish fawn colour, with numerous long
recurved stamens, Their position is
shewn in the section, fig. 7. Anthers
T«d.Tin, resin (fig. 8 n; "al size and fig. 9 slightly magnified),
two celled at the base, terminatin
in a leaf-like scale. Cones (see plate) solitary at the end of the branches, erect, vei
large, dark brown, nearly spharroidal, somewhat depressed, of from 6 to 8 inches iu
diameter. When fully ripe they fall very easily to pieces.
> Scales and bracts (figs, 10, 11, and 12) amalgamated with the seeds, somewhat l
gular, narrowest at the base, 1 ; than an inch in length, forming a thick shell
surrounding an edible kernel; without wings; the short lobe,
which may be mistaken for a wing, corresponding not to the
wing, but to the apex of the scale, and the [irominent scale,
like apophysis being in trudi the bract, and not the scale. The
seed (fig, 13) is long and wedge-shaped. Fig, 14 shews it
split open. In the mature state it is solitaiy, and, as already
.said, its shell absorbs, or is conjoined with, the whole of its
usual appendages—the wing, the scale, and the bract. But
althougli the seed thus appears single, it is not so theoretically,
or alwa)-s.
Both Molina and Pavon, who first described the species, say that each scale has two ovaries;
and Lambert, in his description of the species, gives a figure, furnished to him by Pavon, in
which the presence of the two seeds in the young state is distincdy visible (fig. t.-"). In the specimens
which reach this countr)", the seeds arc
all solitary; but this is due to their
being all mature. We have, through
the kindness of Mr Barnes, the gardener
at Lady Rolle'.s, Bicton, had the
opportunity of examining the young
cones from specimens taken from trees
growing at Bicton, and wc finil that
they are exactly as figured by Pavon
in Lambert's plate. Almost every part of the tree abounds in
a milky-white resin. Id nrarc
According to Pavon, the male tree, in its native country',
grows only to 30 or 40 feet high, while the female reaches 150 feet in height, lie
gives the following account of it in a description published in the Memoirs of ihe
Royal Academy of Sciences at Madrid :—"Its trunk is quite
straight, and without knots, ending in a pyramid formed of horizontal
branches, which decrease in length gradually towards the
top, and is covered with a double bark; the inner is 5 or 6
inchcs thick, fungous, tenacious, porous, and light, from which,
as almost from all other parts, flows resii
outer is of nearly equal thickness, resemblin
directions, ami equally resinous with the inner,"
In
I abundance; the
n-k cleft in various
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