Page:EB1911 - Volume 21.djvu/654

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PINE-APPLE—PINERO
625

appears less suitable for it, probably from the want of summer heat, and it can hardly be recommended for British plantmg otherwise than for ornamental purposes.

Nearly approaching this is P. excelsa, the Bhotan pine, which differs chiefly in its longer cones and drooping glaucous foliage. It is found in Kumaon and Bhotan and on some of the Nepal ranges, but does not grow in the moist climate of the Sikkim Himalayas. It is found at a height of 7000 to 12,000 ft, and attains large dimensions, the wood is highly resinous, and is said to be durable, great quantities of a white clear turpentine exude from the branches when injured. The Bhotan pine is quite hardy in southern England, and has been largely planted of late as an ornamental tree.

P. Lambertiana, the giant pine or sugar pine of California, is the largest of the genus, rising to the height of 200 ft, with a trunk 20 to 30 ft. in girth, and, it is said, occasionally attaining much larger dimensions. The head is of a pyramidal form, the lower branches drooping like those of a Norway spruce; its foliage is of a light bright green colour. The pendent cones are very large, sometimes 18 in. long and 4 in. in diameter, with large nut-like seeds, which, pounded and baked, are eaten by the Indians. The tree abounds in some sandy districts, but more generally occurs singly or in small groups dispersed through the woods, attaining its greatest dimensions in light soils. The wood is soft and nearly white, but contains much resin, which when fire has run through the forest exudes, and, having in this half-burnt condition a sweetish taste, has g1en the common name to the tree, the wood seem to be formed slowly; from its smooth grain it is valued for indoor carpentry, the saccharine burnt resin is used as a laxative in California.

P. Cembra is the stone pine of Siberia and central Europe. It abounds on the Alps, the Carpathians and the Siberian ranges, in Switzerland being found at an altitude of 4000 to 6000 ft. It is a straight growing tree, th grey bark and whorls of horizontal branches giving a cylindro-conical outline, the leaves are short, rigid and glaucous, the cones, oblong and rather pointing upwards, grow only near the top of the tree, and ripen in the second autumn, the seeds are oily like those of P. Pinea, and are eaten both on the Alps and by the inhabitants of Siberia, a fine oil is expressed from them which is used both for food and in lamps, but, like that of the Italian pine, it soon turns rancid. The growth of P. Cembra is slow, but the wood is of remarkably even grain, and is employed by the Swiss wood carvers in preference to any other. The Cembra is the " zirbel" or "zirbel-kiefer" of the Germans, and is known locally in Switzerland as the "aroile," "aloies," and " arve ".

P. occidentalis a five-leaved pine with pale green foliage and small ovate cones, is found on the high mountains of Santo Domingo and Cuba. Many members of the group occur on the Mexican isthmus, one of which, P. cembroides, produces edible seeds, another, P. Montezumae, is a valuable timber tree. P. Ayacahuite, the common white pine of Mexico, spreads southwards on to the mountains of Guatemala. It is a large tree with glaucous foliage like P. Strobus, and yields a valuable resin P. filifolia and P. macrophylla, likewise natives of Central America, are remarkable for the extreme length of their leaves, the former is said to attain a large size.  (C. P. J.) 


PINE-APPLE. The pine-apple so called consists in reality of the inflorescence of the plant, the originally separate flowers of which, together with the bracts supporting them, become fleshy and consolidated into one mass. The swelling and fusion of the tissues take place after the process of fertilization, and it may be that the richly perfumed succulent mass is an aid in the distribution of seed by affording food to certain animals. In the highly developed cultivated pines, however, it frequently happens that the seeds do not ripen properly The pine Ananas sativus, is a member of the natural order Bromeliaceae of tropical American origin, where it is widely spread, and it is now naturalized in the tropical regions of the Old World.

Evelyn in his Diary mentions tasting a pine-apple from Barbados at the table of Charles II., and this is we believe the first mention of the fruit in English literature. A picture, of which a copy may be seen at the rooms of the Royal Horticultural Society of London, represents the royal gardener, Mr Rose, presenting on bended knee the first pine apple grown in Britain, and it is surmised that this may have been grown from the "suckers" of the fruit above alluded to by Evelyn, though it generally considered that the pine was not cultivated in England till 1712. For many years pine-apples were cultivated in large private gardens, but owing to the great developments in culture in the West Indies, the Azores, Canary Islands, &c., they are no longer cultivated in Britain or Europe.

Pine-apple (Ananas sativus) much reduced.
Pine-apple (Ananas sativus) much reduced.

Pine-apple (Ananas sativus) much reduced.


PINE BLUFF, a city and the county seat of Jefferson county, Arkansas, U.S.A., situated at an altitude of about 200 ft. in the alluvial bottoms of the Arkansas river, about 107 m. from it mouth, and about 42 m. S. by E. of Little Rock. Pop. (1910), 15,102. It has an active river trade with St Louis, Memphis and New Orleans, and five railway outlets—the Missouri Pacific and its branch, the Pine Bluff & Western, and the St Louis South-Western and its two branches, the Pine Bluff & Arkansas River and the Altheimer. The city has many schools, and a business college, the state normal school for negroes, and Merrill institute, endowed by Joseph Merrill of Pine Bluff with $100,000. Large quantities of cotton and lumber are shipped from the city. Among the manufactures are cotton-seed oil, lumber and staves, and furniture. Pine Bluff has shops of the St Louis South-Western railway. The city's factory products were valued at $2,989,242 in 1905, an increase of 94% over their value in 1900 Pine Bluff was laid out in 1832 and chartered as a city in 1885.


PINEL, PHILIPPE (1745–1826), French physician, was born at the chateau of Rascas, Saint-André, in the department of Tarn, France, on the 20th of April 1745 He studied at Lavaur and afterwards at the university of Toulouse, where he took his doctor's degree in 1773. From Montpellier he removed in 1778 to Paris, engaging there chiefly in literary work connected with his profession. His first publication was a French translation of William Cullen's Nosology (1785), it was followed by an edition of the works of G. Baghvi (1788), and in 1791 he published a Traité medico-philosophique de l'aliénation mentale. In 1792 he became head physician of the Bicêtre, and two years afterwards he received the corresponding appointment at the Salpêtrière, where he began to deliver a course of chnical lectures, these formed the basis of his Nosographie philosophique (1798; 6th ed., 1818), which was further developed in La Médecine clinique (1802). Pinel was made a member of the Institute in 1803, and soon afterwards was appointed professor of pathology in the École de Médecine. His fame rests entirely upon the fact that he was among the first to introduce the humane treatment of the insane. He died at Paris on the 26th of October 1826.


PINERO, SIR ARTHUR WING (1855–), English dramatist, was born in London on the 24th of May 1855, the son of John Daniel Pinero, a Jewish solicitor, whose family was of Portuguese origin, long established in London. A. W. Pinero was engaged in 1874 as an actor at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, and came to London in 1876, to play at the Globe Theatre. Later in the year he joined the Lyceum company, of which he remained a member for five years. The first piece of his to see the footlights