The Swiss Stone Pine attains a height of 15 or 25 metres and occupies two distinct areas, the Alps, from Savoy to the Carpathians at high altitudes, and the plains and mountain-slopes throughout the vast area from northeastern Russia through Siberia. Beyond the Lena and Lake Baikal it becomes a dwarf (var. pumila) with its eastern limit in northern Nippon and in Kamchatka. It is successfully cultivated in the cool-temperate climates of Europe and America. The wood is of even, close grain, peculiarly adapted to carving. The nuts are gathered for food and confections, but are destroyed in great numbers by squirrels, mice and a jay-like crow, the European Nutcracker. It is generally conceded, however, that these enemies assist in dissemination.
Fig. 87, Cone, seed and magnified leaf-section. Fig. 88, Tree at Arolla, Switzerland. Fig. 89, Cone, leaf-fascicle and magnified leaf-section of var. pumila.
1853 P. flexilis Balfour in Bot. Exped. Oregon, 1, f. (not James). 1857 P. cembroides Newberry in Pacif. R. R. Rep. vi-3, 44, f. (not Zuccarini). 1863 P. albicaulis Engelmann in Trans. Acad. Sci. St. Louis, ii. 209. 1867 P. shasta Carrière, Trait. Conif. ed. 2, 390.
Spring-shoots glabrous or pubescent. Branchlets pliant and tough. Leaves from 4 to 7 cm. long, entire, stout, persistent for several years; stomata dorsal and ventral; resin-ducts external. Conelets short-pedunculate, dark purple during the second season, their scales often tapering to an acute apex. Cones from 5 to 7 cm. long, subsessile, oval or subglobose; apophyses nut-brown or fulvous brown, dull or slightly lustrous, very thick, the under surface conspicuous, meeting the upper surface in an acute margin, and terminated by a salient, often acute umbo; seed wingless, the testa bare of spermoderm.
This species ranges from British Columbia through Washington and Oregon, over the mountains of northern California and the Sierras as far south as Mt. Whitney, and, on the Rocky Mountains, through Idaho and Montana to northern Wyoming. It is found at the timber-line of many stations and forms, in exposed situations, flat table-like masses close to the ground. It is a species of no economical importance and is too inaccessible for the profitable gathering of its large nuts, which are devoured in quantity by squirrels and by Clark's crow, a bird of the same genus with the pinivorous Nutcracker of Europe.