Spring-shoots uninodal, pruinose. Leaves binate, ternate, or both, from 10 to 15 cm. long, stout and rigid; resin-ducts external, or external and medial. Staminate catkins in short capitate clusters. Conelets mucronate. Cones from 4 to 9 cm. long, ovate, symmetrical or oblique, tenaciously persistent, dehiscent at maturity; apophyses lustrous, pale tawny yellow at first, gradually changing to a dark nut-brown, tumid, the posterior scales often larger and more prominent.

A tree of cold-temperate and subalpine levels, growing on the mountains of central and western China, and at lower altitudes in the north and in Corea. It is recognized by its tenaciously persistent cones with a remarkable change in color. It is constantly confused with P. Thunbergii and P. densiflora, neither of which grows spontaneously in China. From the former it differs in leaf-section and bud (the bud of P. sinensis is never white), from the latter in the lustre and the color variation of its cone, and from both in the frequent obliquity of its cone and in the frequent presence of trimerous leaf-fascicles.

Of the two varieties of this species, densata and yunnanensis (Shaw in Sargent, Pl. Wilson. ii. 17), the former represents the extreme oblique form of cone, the latter represents the longest dimensions of cone and leaf. The effect of environment on this species can be seen in figs. 202, 203, from a lower slope and rich soil, and fig. 204, from a high rocky ledge in the same locality.

[Plate XXIII].

Fig. 201, Cone of var. densata. Fig. 202, Cone of var. yunnanensis. Fig. 203, Leaf-fascicle and magnified leaf-section of var. yunnanensis. Fig. 204, Cone and leaf-fascicle from a rocky ledge. Fig. 205, Cone, leaf-fascicle and magnified leaf-section of the typical form. Fig. 206, Seeds. Fig. 207, Conelet and its enlarged scale.

36. PINUS INSULARIS

Spring-shoots uninodal, glabrous. Leaves from 12 to 24 cm. long, in fascicles of 3, rarely of 2, very slender; resin-ducts external, rarely with a medial duct. Conelets mucronate. Cones from 5 to 10 cm. long, ovate-conic, symmetrical or oblique, tenaciously persistent; apophyses lustrous, nut-brown, convex or elevated along a transverse keel, the posterior scales of some cones larger and more prominent than the anterior scales, the mucro usually deciduous.

A species of the Philippines and of northern Burmah. In both countries it is locally exploited for wood and resin. It differs from the common form of P. sinensis by its much longer leaves, and from its var. yunnanensis, which it more resembles, by its much more slender and pliant leaves. Moreover its cone, so far as I can learn, is not yellow at maturity, but brown.