I will now mention another new Pinus to you (P. Venusta,) which I discovered last March, on the high mountains of California (you will begin to think that I manufacture Pines at my pleasure). As my notes are not at hand, I must describe from memory.
Leaves solitary, two-ranked, rigid, sharp-pointed, green above, glaucous beneath. Cone cylindrical, three to four inches long, four to six inches round, erect; scales orbicular, deciduous (like those of P. balsamea), with an entire bractea or appendage between the scales, exserted to three or four inches and a half! When on the tree, being in great clusters and at a great height withal, these cones resemble the inflorescence of a Banksia, a name which I should have liked to give the species, but that there is a Pinus Banksii already. This tree attains a great size and height, and is, on the whole, a most beautiful object. It is never seen at a lower elevation than six thousand feet above the level of the sea, in latitude 36°, where it is not uncommon.
I saw for a second time, and in a new habitat, Pinus Lambertiana, more southerly on the mountains of Santa Lucia, in Upper Calfornia. Its cones were in fine condition, though perhaps a little too young and somewhat longer than those I had discovered further to the North in 1826. The timber in this new situation is the largest of all, but by no means so fine as that in the 43° and 45° of N. lat., where the temperature is doubtless more congenial to it. I have a host of new and beautiful plants; among them a fine perennial species of Delphinum, D. Cardinalis, with flowers as fine as those of Lychnis fulgens, and seven undescribed kinds of Calochortus, which make that noble genus to consist, in all, of twelve species [including Cyclobothrya. Ed.]
Prom the Sandwich Islands, I shipped on board the Sarah and Elizabeth, a South Seaman of London, and bound for that port, nineteen large bundles of dry plants, in two chests, together with seeds, specimens of timber, etc. The Captain, a worthy little man, placed these articles in his own cabin, which gives great relief to my mind as to their safety. I have written to the Horticultural Society of London (should such exist), requesting the Council to permit four of the bundles of dried plants, destined "for. Dr Hooker of Glasgow," to be despatched without delay, and further " begging that they will permit me to transfer the publication of each and all these plants, saving those which the Society may consider as coming within their plans, to that gentleman, either for an Appendix to his Flora Boreali-Americana, or in any other works in which he may be engaged.[1] No one is more
- ↑ I need scarcely say that this generous wish on the part of poor Douglas, has been to the fullest extent complied with, by the Horticultural Society; and the merits of this zealous Naturalist will be yet more evident, when I shall lay the account of them before the public, in the Companion to the Botanical Magatiue. The materials are in a considerable state of forwardness, and figures of some have already appeared in the Icones Plantarum.
