mountains of Auvergne, the Cevennes and Pyrenees, and is specially noted as occurring chiefly on the slopes with a southerly aspect.[1] It is common in the eastern part of the Pyrenees, between 4000 and 6600 feet altitude.
In Spain the common pine is also restricted to the mountains, only forming woods on northern slopes; and in the Sierra Nevada, forms the large and splendid forest of La Granja on the north side of the Sierra de Guadarrama, where it ascends to 6500 feet.[2]
In Germany very extensive and pure forests of pine occur in the north-east, always on sandy soil in the plain. These forests are called heaths, as they contain wide stretches covered only with heather and many swampy areas. Such forests are common in the provinces of East and West Prussia, Pomerania, Brandenburg, Posen, upper Silesia, Saxony, and in the kingdom of Saxony. Other large forests of the same kind occur more isolatedly in north Schleswig, Hanover, Jutland, and Holland. In the valley of the Rhine, both in Alsace and Baden, very fine forests of pine are also met with, as at Haguenau, likewise on sandy soil. In the mountains of Middle and Southern Germany, the pine only grows in small groves or as isolated trees. Similarly throughout the Alps and Carpathians, in Hungary, and on both shores of the Adriatic the pine is rare, only occurring in small woods,
The pine does not occur wild in the islands belonging to Denmark, and is totally absent from the Hungarian plain, the Bakony forest in Hungary, the Central Carpathians, Banat, and Slavonia, and is not met with in the alpine and subalpine regions of the high mountains of Central Europe. (A.H.)
In Switzerland this tree does not seem to attain such a large size as in Scandinavia. A tree at Campodials in the Grisons, figured on Plate xi. of Les Arbres de la Suisse, is said to be 80 feet high by 10 feet 6 inches in girth at 4 feet from the ground. It grows on the edge of a forest at about 3000 feet elevation, on crystalline rocks.
In Norway and Sweden the common pine constitutes by far the largest portion of the forest, and flourishes farther north than any other tree except the birch. Though truly virgin forest is now becoming a rarity in Norway, and in the more accessible parts of Sweden and Finland, yet the area of land covered with pine and spruce is still so large and so much better suited than England for the production of commercial timber that we shall, in my opinion, never be able to produce it of such good quality and at so low a price. I have seen Pinus sylvestris at its best in the forests of South-Eastern Norway in the valley of the Glommen; where the bright yellow bark of the upper part of the tall trunks on the banks of the river is a marked feature of the scenery; and in the far north in upper Saltenfjord where the oldest pines known to me now exist; though here, as elsewhere, they are rapidly being felled to supply the great demand for building and mining timber. In the more central provinces of North and South Trondhjem, and on the coast, the pine does not seem to grow to such a great size, probably because the soil and climate are too wet to suit
