A tree ranging from Portugal to Afghanistan, and from Algeria to Dalmatia and to northern Italy and Southern France. It is a vigorous species in its own home, growing readily in poor soils, but not successful in colder climates. The wood is resinous and valuable for fuel. The turpentine industry, once associated with this species, has gradually been abandoned for the more copious product of P. pinaster.
It is recognized by its lustrous red cones and by the ashen gray cortex of its branches and upper trunk. Tenore's P. brutia (pyrenaica of some authors) is founded on a difference in the length of the leaf and on an erect cone with a shorter peduncle. To recognize species on such distinctions would not be consistent with the purpose and spirit of this discussion.
Fig. 279, Two cones. Fig. 280, Cone. Fig. 281, Lateral conelet. Fig. 282, Magnified leaf-section. Fig. 283, Dermal tissues of the leaf magnified.
51. PINUS PINASTER
- 1768 P. sylvestris Miller, Gard. Dict. ed. 8 (not Linnaeus).
- 1789 P. pinaster Aiton, Hort. Kew. iii. 367.
- 1798 P. laricio Savi, Fl. Pisa. ii. 353 (not Poiret).
- 1804 P. maritima Poiret in Lamarck, Encycl. Méth. v. 337 (not Lambert).
- 1826 P. escarena Risso, Hist. Nat. ii. 340.
- 1835 P. Lemoniana Bentham in Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond. ser. 2, i. 512, t.
- 1845 P. Hamiltonii Tenore, Cat. Ort. Nap. 90.
Spring-shoots sometimes multinodal. Bark-formation early. Leaves binate, from 10 to 20 cm. long, stout and rigid; resin-ducts medial, hypoderm multiform, the inner cells gradually larger, remarkably large in the angles of the leaf. Conelets minutely mucronate. Cones from 9 to 18 cm. long, nearly sessile, ovate-conic, symmetrical or subsymmetrical, persistent, sometimes serotinous; apophyses lustrous nut-brown or rufous brown, conspicuously pyramidal, the umbo salient and pungent.
A maritime tree corresponding nearly, in its range, with the preceding species, but more hardy in cooler climates. It grows from Portugal to Greece, and from Algeria to Dalmatia, but its area has been much extended by cultivation. Under favorable conditions it attains large dimensions, but its exploitation for resin and turpentine tends to diminish its size and disfigure its habit (Mathieu, Fl. Forest, ed. 4, 611). Its rapid growth, strong root-system, and its ability to thrive on poor sandy soil, have led to the employment of this species for the forestation of sand-dunes in France.
The tree can be recognized by its long stout leaves and persistent brown cones. Its leaf-section is peculiar in the remarkable size of the inner cells of the hypoderm, especially in the angles of the leaf.