Introduction
According to Loudon,! the Corsican variety was introduced into England, as long ago as 1759, under the name Pinus sylvestris, € maritima, which was adopted by Aiton.’ In France, the tree in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris was planted in 1774 ; but the date of introduction of the first seed is probably earlier. The Austrian pine was introduced! in 1835 by Lawson of Edinburgh. Var. pallasiana was first raised by Messrs. Lee and Kennedy, Hammersmith, from seeds sent to them about the year 1790 from the Crimea by Professor Pallas.! Captain Cook’ imported seed in 1834 from the Sierra de Segura in the south of Spain; but the plants raised were probably indistinguishable from the ordinary Corsican variety ; and there is no record of the introduction of the Pyrenean or Cevennes variety, of which we know of no large trees in this country.
Distribution
The species has a widespread distribution, extending westwards from Spain into the Cevennes in France, finding its northerly limit in Austria, and descending into Corsica, Italy, Sicily, the Balkan peninsula, Greece, Crete, and Cyprus, it re- appears in the Crimea and in Asia Minor, and reaches its most easterly point in the Caucasus.
In Spain, a form considered by Willkomm to be identical with the Corsican variety occurs scattered through the plateaux and mountains of the south-eastern and central provinces, at altitudes between 1000 and 3500 feet. The largest forests occur in the Serrania de Cuenca, and in the sierras of Segura and Cazorla, the most southerly point reached being in the last-named mountain in N. lat. 37° 40’ and W. long. 3°.
Pyrenean Laricio.—The form® which occurs in the Pyrenees and the Cevennes is remarkable for its stunted growth and slender leaves. It grows on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees in the province of Aragon, not far from Venasque, between the rivers Esera and Cinca. From this locality, which was visited by Mr. H. L. de Vilmorin in his investigations of the Pyrenean Laricio,* seeds were regularly sent to Paris for many years early in the 19th century, by M. Boileau, pharmacist at Bagnéres-de-Luchon.
M. Calas, who has written an elaborate memoir® on this variety, accompanied by a map of its distribution and numerous illustrations of the forests reproduced from photographs, discovered it in 1890 on the north side of the Pyrenees near Prades. Here it covers a scattered area of about 3600 acres in the hills south of the river Têt and north of Mount Canigou, the district being called Conflent; and grows on glacial clay at elevations between 1880 and 3300 feet. In most places the original forest has been ruined by sheep-grazing and fires, and usually only small isolated
1 Op. cit. 2204, 2206, 2208, 2209. The date for the Corsican pine is not improbable, as Loudon (viii, t. 315)
gives a figure of a tree at Kew, which was 85 feet high in 1838.
2 Hort. Kew. iii, 366 (1780),
3 Cf. Durand, in Bull. Soc. Bot. France, xl. p. ccxxviii (1893).
- Ibid. p. lxxvii.
Le Pin Laricio de Salzmann, pp. 50, tt. 1–19. Published at Paris by the Minister of Agriculture in 1900.
