Spring-shoots uninodal. Leaves binate, rarely ternate, from 12 to 20 cm. long, slender and pliant; hypoderm inconspicuous; resin-ducts external. Staminate catkins often in long dense clusters. Conelets partly tuberculate or mucronate, partly mutic. Cones symmetrical, from 4 to 7 cm. long, ovate-conic, short-pedunculate, early deciduous; apophyses sublustrous, nut-brown, flat or somewhat elevated, the umbo usually mutic.

The Chinese Red Pine is found in warm-temperate climates. It is native to southeastern China and follows the valley of the Yangtse River into Szech'uan. It has been confused by London with P. pinaster, which it resembles in no respect, by Siebold with P. Thunbergii, from which it differs in leaf-dimensions and in leaf-section, and by Mayr with his P. luchuensis, whose peculiar cortex and whose leaf-section has no counterpart among Chinese Hard Pines. Its nearest relative is P. densiflora, from which it differs in its longer leaves, in the color of its cone and in its conelet ([Plate XX], figs. 176, 179).

[Plate XX].

Fig. 176, Cone and enlarged conelet. Fig. 177, Two leaf-fascicles. Fig. 178, Magnified leaf-section.

28. PINUS DENSIFLORA

Spring-shoots more or less pruinose, uninodal. Leaves binate, from 8 to 12 cm. long, slender; hypoderm of few inconspicuous cells; resin-ducts external. Staminate catkins in long dense clusters. Scales of the conelet conspicuously mucronate. Cones symmetrical, from 3 to 5 cm. long, ovate-conic, often persistent for a few years but with a weak hold on the branch; apophyses dull pale tawny yellow, flat or slightly elevated, the mucro more or less persistent.

The Japanese Red Pine forms extensive forests on the mountains of central Japan. It is perfectly hardy in cold-temperate climates. Wild specimens of China, ascribed to this species, are forms of the variable P. sinensis. From P. Massoniana it differs in its shorter leaves and yellow cone, but particularly in the more prominent prickles and thicker scales of its conelet (figs. 176, 179).

[Plate XX].