Still another species of American birches is the “dwarf birch” (Betula nana), so called from its diminutive size, which is that of a shrub, only eighteen inches or two feet in height. It usually grows in very cold or mountainous regions, and is the smallest of these interesting trees.
This information regarding the birches of America was given by Lucien to his brothers, not at that time, but shortly afterward, when the three were engaged in felling one of these trees. Just then other matters occupied them, and they had only glanced, first at the canoe-birch and then at the other tree which Norman had pointed out. The latter was of a different genus. It belonged to the order Coniferae, or cone-bearing trees, as was evident from the cone-shaped fruits that hung upon its branches, as well as from its needle-like evergreen leaves.
The cone-bearing trees of America are divided by botanists into three great sub-orders—the Pines, the Cypresses, and the Yews. Each of these includes several genera. By the “pine tribe” is meant all those trees known commonly by the names pine, spruce, fir, and larch; while the Cupressinae, or cypress tribe, are the cypress proper, the cedars, the arbour-vitae, and the junipers. The yew tribe has fewer genera or species; but the trees in America known as yews and hemlocks—of which there are several varieties—belong to it.
Of the pine tribe a great number of species exist throughout the North American Continent. The late explorations on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, and in the countries bordering on the Pacific, have brought to light a score of species hitherto unknown to the botanist. Many of these are trees of a singular and valuable kind. Several species found in the mountains of North Mexico, and throughout those desert regions where hardly any other vegetation exists, have edible seeds upon which whole tribes of Indians subsist for many months in the year. The Spanish Americans call them pinon trees, but there are several species of them in different districts. The Indians parch the seeds, and sometimes pound them into a coarse meal, from which they bake a very palatable bread. This bread is often rendered more savoury by mixing the meal with dried “prairie crickets,” a species of coleopterous insects—that is, insects with a crustaceous or shell-like covering over their wings—which are common in the desert wilds where these Indians dwell. Some prairie travellers have pronounced this singular mixture equal to the “best pound-cake.”
The “Lambert pine,” so called from the botanist of that name, is found in Oregon and California, and may be justly considered one of the wonders of the world. Three hundred feet is not an uncommon height for this vegetable giant; and its cones have been seen of eighteen inches in length, hanging like sugar-loaves from its high branches! The wonderful “palo Colorado” of California is another giant of the pine tribe. It also grows above three hundred feet high, with a diameter of sixteen feet! Then there is the “red pine,” of eighty feet high, much used for the decks and masts of ships; the “pitch-pine” (Pinus rigida), a smaller tree, esteemed for its fuel, and furnishing most of the firewood used in some of the American cities. From this species the strong burning “knots” are obtained. There is the “white pine” (Pinus strobus), valuable for its timber. This is one of the largest and best known of the pines. It often attains a height of an hundred and fifty feet, and a large proportion of those planks so well-known to the carpenter are sawed from its trunk. In the State of New York alone no less than 700,000,000 feet of timber are annually obtained from trees of this species, which, by calculation, must exhaust every year the enormous amount of 70,000 acres of forest! Of course, at this rate the pine-forests of New York State must soon be entirely destroyed.
In addition, there is the “yellow pine,” a tree of sixty feet high, much used in flooring houses; and the beautiful “balsam fir,” used as an ornamental evergreen both in Europe and America, and from which is obtained the well-known medicine—the “Canada balsam.” This tree, in favourable situations, attains the height of sixty feet; while upon the cold summits of mountains it is often seen rising only a few inches from the surface. The “hemlock spruce” (Pinus Canadensis), is another species, the bark of which is used in tanning. It is inferior to the oak, though the leather made by it is of excellent quality. The “black” or “double spruce” (Pinus nigra), is that species from the twigs of which is extracted the essence that gives its peculiar flavour to the well-known “spruce beer.” Besides these, at least a dozen new species have lately been discovered on the interior mountains of Mexico—all of them more or less possessing valuable properties.
The pines cannot be termed trees of the tropics, yet do they grow in southern and warm countries. In the Carolinas, tar and turpentine, products of the pine, are two staple articles of exportation; and even under the equator itself, the high mountains are covered with pine-forests. But the pine is more especially the tree of a northern sylva. As you approach the Arctic circle, it becomes the characteristic tree. There it appears in extensive forests, lending their picturesque shelter to the snowy desolation of the earth. One species of pine is the very last tree that disappears as the traveller, in approaching the pole, takes his leave of the limits of vegetation. This species is the “white spruce” (Pinus alba), the very one which, along with the birch-tree, had been pointed out by Norman to his companions.
It was a tree not over thirty or forty feet high, with a trunk of less than a foot in thickness, and of a brownish colour. Its leaves or “needles” were about an inch in length, very slender and acute, and of a bluish green tint. The cones upon it, which at that season were young, were of a pale green. When ripe, however, they become rusty-brown, and are nearly two inches in length.
What use Norman would make of this tree in building his canoe, neither Basil nor François knew. Lucien only guessed at it. François asked the question, by saying that he supposed the “timbers” were to come out of it.
“No,” said Norman, “for that I want still another sort. If I can’t find that sort, however, I can manage to do without it, but not so well.”