The bracts of spring-shoots are the scarious bud-scales of the previous winter; but the bracts of summer-shoots have the form and green color of the primary leaf.
THE BUD. [Plate I], figs. 7-11.
The winter-bud is an aggregate of minute buds, each concealed in the axil of a primary leaf converted into a scarious, more or less fimbriate, bud-scale. Buds from which normal growth develops appear only at the nodes of the branches. On uninodal branchlets they form an apical group consisting of a terminal bud with a whorl of subterminal buds about its base. On multinodal branchlets the inner nodes bear lateral buds which may be latent.
Fig. 7 represents a magnified bud of P. resinosa, first immersed in alcohol to dissolve the resin, then deprived of its scales. This bud contains both fascicle-buds, destined for secondary leaves, and larger paler buds at its base. These last are incipient staminate flowers, sufficiently developed for recognition. Such flower-bearing buds are characteristic of the Hard Pines in distinction from the Soft Pines whose staminate flowers cannot be identified in the bud.
The want of complete data leaves the invariability of this distinction in question, but with all species that I have examined, the flowers of Hard Pines are further advanced at the end of the summer. In the following year they open earlier than those of Soft Pines in the same locality. The staminate flowers of some Hard Pines (resinosa, sylvestris, etc.,) are not apparent without removing the bud-scales, but, with most Hard Pines, they form enlargements of the bud (fig. 9).
Invisible or latent buds are present at the nodes and at the apex of dwarf shoots. The former are the origin of the numerous shoots that cover the trunk and branches of P. rigida, leiophylla and a few other species (fig. 10). The latter develop into shoots in the centre of a leaf-fascicle (fig. 11) when the branchlet, bearing the fascicle, has been injured.
The size, color and form of buds, the presence of resin in quantity, etc., assist in the diagnosis of species. Occasionally a peculiar bud, like that of P. palustris, may be recognized at once.
THE BRANCHLET. [Plate I], figs. 12-14.
The branchlet, as here understood, is the whole of a season's growth from a single bud, and may consist of a single internode (uninodal, fig. 12-a) or of two or more internodes (multinodal, fig. 13), each internode being defined by a leafless base and a terminal node of buds.