THE PITCH PINE.

The Pitch Pine differs very widely in its style of growth from the white pine, and displays fewer of those points that excite our admiration. Its leaves form larger and more diffusive tufts, and are more bristling and erect from their superior rigidity. It is remarkable for its rough and shaggy appearance; hence its Latin name, rigida. Indeed there is not a tree in our forest that equals it in the roughness that is manifest in every part of it and in every stage of its growth. This is one of the most common trees in the Southern “pine barrens”; and some of the ancient pine woods in New England were made up principally of this species. Such was that extensive wood near Concord, N. H., known by the poetic appellation of “Dark Plains,” and in the early part of the century occupying a wide flat region in the valley of the Merrimack River.

This species does not give out its branches horizontally, nor in regular whorls. They run up at rather a wide angle with the stem, forming a head that approaches more nearly to a globular shape than that of any other of the American conifers. The branches have frequently a tortuous shape; for when crowded in a dense wood they do not so easily perish as those of the white pine, but turn in various directions to find light and space. They are likewise often bent downwards at their terminations, with a very apparent curvature. There is no conifer that displays so few straight lines in its composition; and, having no exact symmetry in its proportions, it may be mutilated to a considerable extent without losing its normal characters of beauty.

In young trees of this species the whorls of branches may be plainly distinguished; but as the tree increases in size, so many members of the whorl become abortive that all regularity of staging in their arrangement is destroyed. As these branches are numerous, with but little space between the original whorls, they seem to project from every part of the trunk. This tree displays very little primness in its shape, or of a spiry form, save when it is a very young tree. A peculiar habit of the Pitch Pine is that of producing little branchlets full of leaves along the stem from the root upwards, completely enveloping some of the principal boughs. These are rarely anything more than tufts of leaves standing out as if they had been grafted into the bark of the tree. It seems to be stimulated to produce this anomalous growth by the loss of its small branches. It then soon covers itself with this embroidery, and thus garlanded presents a picturesque appearance more interesting than that of the perfect trees.

I have seen very beautiful Pitch Pine trees of an abnormal shape, caused by the loss, when young, of the leading shoot. The lateral branches next below this terminal bud, being thus converted into leaders, produce two and sometimes three leading branches, giving the tree some of the characters of the deciduous species. The white pine is not improved by a similar accident, as it loses thereby the expression of grandeur that comes from the length and size of its lateral branches, which are always diminished by coming from two or more leading shafts. Michaux remarks that when Pitch-Pines “grow in masses, the cones are dispersed singly over the branches, and they shed their seeds the first autumn after they mature. But on solitary trees the cones are collected in groups of four or five, or even a larger number, and will remain on the trees, closed, for several years.”

The Pitch Pine abounds all along the coast from Massachusetts to the Carolinas; but it is rare in the northern parts of Maine and New Hampshire and north of these States. It is said to have been very abundant in the southern part of New England before the eighteenth century, but large forests of it were consumed in making tar for exportation to Great Britain. The Pitch Pine woods of the present day consist of small stunted trees, showing by their inferior thrift that they stand upon an exhausted soil.

The trees of this species, for the most part too homely and rough to please the sight, are not generally admired as objects in the landscape; but there is a variety in their shapes that makes amends for their want of comeliness and gives them a marked importance in scenery. We do not in general sufficiently estimate the value of homely objects among the scenes of nature, though they are indeed the groundwork of all charming scenery, and set off to advantage the beauty of more comely objects. They give rest and relief to the eye, after it has felt the stimulus of beautiful forms and colors, that would soon pall upon the sense; and they leave imagination free to dress the scene according to our own fancy.

Hence I am led to prize many a homely tree as possessing a high value, by exalting our susceptibility to beauty, and by relieving nature of that monotony which is so apparent when all the objects in a scene are beautiful. We see this monotony in all dressed grounds of considerable extent. We soon become weary of their ever-flowing lines of grace and elegance, and the harmonious blending of forms and colors introduced by art. This principle explains the difficulty of reading a whole volume written in verse. We soon weary of luxuries; and after strolling in grounds laid out in gaudy flower-beds and smooth shaven lawn, the tired eye rests with tranquil delight upon rude pastures bounded by loose stone-walls, and hills embroidered with ferns and covered with boulders.

The pines are not classed with deciduous trees, yet they shed their leaves in autumn with constant regularity. Late in October you may see the yellow or brown foliage, then ready to fall, surrounding the branches of the previous year’s growth, forming a whorl of brown fringe, surmounted by a tuft of green leaves of the present year’s growth. Their leaves always turn yellow before they fall. In the arbor-vitæ there is a curious intermixture of brown leaves with the green growth of the past summer; but, before November arrives, all the faded leaves drop, and the tree forms a mass of unmingled verdure.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

  1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.
  2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.