Spring-shoots uninodal and multinodal, pruinose. Bark-formation late, the branches and upper trunk smooth. Leaves ternate, from 7 to 10 cm. long, erect; resin-ducts medial, hypoderm of uniform thin-walled cells. Conelets mucronate. Cones from 6 to 12 cm. long, ovate-conic, oblique, serotinous, reflexed; apophyses lustrous tawny yellow, convex, the posterior gradually larger and more prominent than the anterior scales, the umbo flat or depressed, the mucro deciduous.
This species is known, at present, from specimens collected in the vicinity of the city of Saltillo, in northeastern Mexico. Were it not for the difference of bark it might be considered to be a northern variety of P. patula with shorter erect leaves. With both species the long peduncle of the conelet becomes overgrown by the basal scales of the ripe cone, which appears to be sessile. With both, the cones are in crowded nodal clusters, reflexed against the branch. They are so much alike that earlier descriptions of P. patula included the smooth gray bark of P. Greggii. The first correct description of the scaly red bark of P. patula appeared in the second edition of Veitch's Manual of Conifers.
Fig. 311, Cone. Fig. 312, Conelet. Fig. 313, Leaf-fascicle and magnified leaf-section. Fig. 314, Branch showing erect leaves.
60. PINUS PATULA
- 1831 P. patula Schlechtendal & Chamisso in Linnaea, vi. 354.
Spring-shoots multinodal, more or less pruinose. Bark-formation early, the scales deciduous, the upper trunk and branches red. Leaves prevalently ternate but sometimes in fascicles of 4 or 5, from 15 to 30 cm. long, slender and gracefully drooping; resin-ducts medial or with an occasional internal duct, hypoderm weak, of uniform thin-walled cells. Conelets mucronate. Cones from 6 to 11 cm. long, in crowded verticillate clusters, sessile, reflexed, ovate-conic, oblique, persistent and serotinous; apophyses lustrous nut-brown, more or less tumid, the posterior gradually larger than the anterior scales, the umbo flat or depressed, the mucro wanting.
Patula grows in the warm-temperate climates of Hidalgo, Puebla and Vera Cruz, in eastern and central Mexico. It can be at once recognized by its slender drooping foliage, its persistent cones, and its red upper trunk. It is cultivated in northern Italy and in the warmer parts of Great Britain.
Fig. 307, Cone. Fig. 308, Conelet. Fig. 309, Leaf-fascicle and magnified leaf-section. Fig. 310, Branchlet with drooping leaves.