Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol02B.djvu/343

Rh This name is given in England to trees with numerous stout branches, the lowermost of which ascend parallel to the trunk; but in foliage scarcely different from the Austrian pine. The cones are usually larger than in that variety and have the radiating cracks strongly marked. This form is supposed to have come from the Crimea. The Laricio which occurs in the Crimea, Asia Minor, and the Caucasus appears, however, to be identical with the Austrian form.

Var. caramanica, Loudon, ''loc. cit. (var. Karamana, Masters, Gard. Chron.'' 1884, xxi. 480, fig. 91). This is the Austrian pine as regards the foliage; but producing extraordinarily large cones, up to four inches or more in length. It is supposed to be identical with a form introduced into Paris by Olivier, who sent seeds in 1798 from Caramania in Asia Minor; but is perhaps only a mere sport of the common Austrian pine. The only specimens known to us are two trees at Syon, grown on the lawn west of the mansion; and one of these measured, in 1903, 72 feet by 8 feet 6 inches.

3. Var. tenuifolia, Parlatore, ''loc. cit. (vars. pyrenaiaca et cebennensis, Grenier et Godron, Flore de France, iii. 153 (1856). Pinus monspeliensis, Salzmann. Pinus Salzmanni,'' Dunal). Pyrenean Pine. Cevennes and Pyrenees.

Small trees, often stunted in growth, with remarkably slender leaves, only half the thickness of the other forms. Young branchlets orange-coloured. Cones smaller than in the Corsican variety. Owing to its slow growth, the annual shoots are very short, and the older branchlets remain slender and bare of leaves fora great distance behind the short tuft of leaves at their extremities.

Pinus leucodermis, Antoine, treated by us as a distinct species, is considered by many authorities to be only an alpine form of Laricio; and there appear to be similar forms occurring in high regions elsewhere, as Pinus Fenzlii, Carrière, which resembles P. leucodermis in having short leaves, almost appressed together in the bundles.

Pinus pindica, Formanek, reported as growing in the Pindus and the Thessalian Olympus, is not recognised by Halacsy; and is probably only a slightly aberrant form of the ordinary Corsican variety. It has been fully described and figured in ''Gardeners' Chronicle, loc. cit.,'' by Dr. Masters.

Horticultural varieties of Laricio are few and unimportant. Beissner mentions pendulous, variegated, and dwarf forms. A golden variety of the Austrian pine, said to have been raised or introduced by Mr. Mongredien of the Heatherside Nursery, has the leaves, especially those on young growths, tipped with gold. Ilsemann saw a tree, in which the leaves were beautifully variegated with yellow, growing wild in a forest in Hungary. A peculiar form of Austrian pine with stout falcate leaves has been observed at Breslau.

Rh