twelve lines of stomata on the convex surface and eight lines on the flat surface; resin canals median, surrounded by stereome cells, meristele elliptic, fibro-vascular bundle branched, Basal sheath about ½ inch long, brown near the base, whitish above, becoming on old leaves short, lacerated, and blackish.
Male flowers clustered, three to ten or more in number, on the lower half of the branchlet of the first year, which grows beyond the inflorescence and bears leaves above; later, when the flowers drop off, these fertile branches appear to be bare of leaves in their lower half. The male flowers are upright, yellow, cylindric, stalked, about an inch long; connective crest large, purplish, finely toothed. Female flowers single or two to three at the top of the young branchlets, very shortly stalked and bright red in colour, remaining as small (½ inch diameter) globular cones till the beginning of the second year.
Cones ripe at the end of the second year, solitary or in pairs or threes, subterminal, sessile; variously directed, upwards, horizontally, or even curving downwards; shining brown; ovoid-conic, 2 to 3 inches long by an inch in diameter, straight or curved, symmetrical, ending in a narrow apex. The cones open in the spring or summer of the third year and soon after the escape of the seeds fall off. Scales about an inch long; concealed part thin, dark reddish brown below and light brown above; apophysis or visible part shining yellowish brown, raised, rounded at the upper margin, with a transverse keel, curved on each side of the central umbo, which is reddish brown and bears a minute or obsolete prickle. Seeds greyish or brownish, more or less mottled, about 1⁄6 inch long; wing three or four times as long, striated light brown, straight on one side and gently curved on the other, about 4 inch wide at the broadest part, which is at the middle or just belowit. Seedling with six or seven cotyledons.
The different geographical forms may be arranged as follows:—
1. Var. corsicana, Loudon, loc. cit. (var. poiretiana, Antoine, Conif. 6: 1840), Corsican Pine. Occurs in south-east Spain, Corsica, southern Italy, Greece, and Crete.
A tall tree with straight stem and slender branches. Leaves light green in colour, not extremely dense upon the branchlets, the whole aspect of the foliage being lighter in colour and sparser in quantity than in the Austrian pine. Buds not very resinous. Cones usually without radiating cracks on the apophyses.
Var. calabrica, Loudon, loc. cit., is scarcely distinguishable. As seen under cultivation at Les Barres, it has perhaps slightly denser foliage than the Corsican variety growing beside it.
2. Var. austriaca, Loudon, loc. cit. (Pinus nigra, Arnold; Pinus austriaca, Höss; Pinus nigricans, Host; Pinus Laricio, var. nigricans, Parlatore). Austrian Pine. Austria, Balkan Peninsula, Crimea, Caucasus, Asia Minor.
Shorter tree, with numerous stout branches. Leaves dark green in colour, extremely dense upon the branchlets, giving the whole tree a dense dark crown of foliage. Buds resinous, whitish, stouter than in the Corsican pine. Cones usually showing radiating cracks in the apophyses.
Var. pallasiana, Endlicher, Syn. Conif. (Pinus pallasiana, Loudon, op. cit. 2206).
