26. PINUS TROPICALIS
- 1851 P. tropicalis Morelet in Rev. Hort. Côte d'Or, i. 105.
- 1904 P. terthrocarpa Shaw in Gard. Chron. ser. 3, xxxv. 179, f. 74.
Spring-shoots uninodal. Leaves binate, sometimes ternate, from 15 to 30 cm. long, rigid, erect; hypoderm of uniform thick-walled cells; resin-ducts of remarkable size, septal, or not quite touching the endoderm and technically external. Scales of the conelet minutely tuberculate. Cones from 5 to 8 cm. long, short-pedunculate, erect or patulous; ovate-conic, symmetrical; apophyses rufous brown, low-pyramidal, the umbo mutic.
Growing at sea-level within the tropics and confined to western Cuba and the Isle of Pines. On the island it is associated with P. caribaea. This species needs no other means of identification than its peculiar leaf-section. Septal ducts are found in P. oocarpa, Pringlei, Merkusii and rarely in other species, but they never attain the extraordinary size that appears to be invariable in P. tropicalis.
Fig. 172, Cone and enlarged conelet. Fig. 173, Branch with leaves, much reduced. Fig. 174, Leaf-fascicle and magnified leaf-section. Fig. 175, Trees on the Isle of Pines.
