Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol02B.djvu/354

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
416
The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland

It is divided into 4 stems near the ground and has a diameter of branches ile 25 yards. A tree called the Broad Pine at Mödling, near Vienna (fig. iii.), has an umbrella shape, very unusual in this species. It is only about 35 feet high but is no less than 60 feet broad. A tree called the Cross or Picture Pine in the Grossen Föhrenwalde (fig. v.) is considered the finest tree there. It measures about 65 feet high, of which two-thirds are clean trunk, and is 9 to 10 feet in girth at about 9 feet from the ground. The tallest specimen which is mentioned is not much over go feet, very much less than those I saw in Bosnia, some of which were considerably over 100 feet and probably over 120 feet, with clean stems to two-thirds of their height.

On good ground, however, in Austria this pine forms very fine timber; an example (shown on fig. viii.) at Gutenstein, near Zellenbach, is said to be 280 years old with an average height of 30 metres. Another of the same age at Fahrafelde is so like the growth of the tree in Bosnia that the photograph illustrating it (fig. ix.) shows the best form of this tree very well.

A hybrid between this tree and Pinus sylvestris was described by Reichhardt ! as growing in the Forest of Merkenstein. (H.J.E.)

In Hungary, according to Pax,” the Austrian pine is only found at Mehadia on the lower Danube, where there are woods on dry stony mountain slopes. He noticed it, however, as a mere shrub at Talmacsel in the valley of the river Alt. In Styria its occurrence as a wild tree is doubtful. In Carinthia there are limited areas of this species on calcareous soil on the southern slopes of the Dobratsch. It is also recorded from Istria, Carniola, Croatia, and the island of Cherso. Ascherson? mentions one locality in Galicia. In Bulgaria‘ it grows in several localities in the Rilo-Dagh, and in the Rhodope Mountains above Stanimaka.

An excellent account of the distribution and forest conditions of this species in the western states of the Balkan peninsula is given by Beck.’ The most extensive forests in this region lie in south-eastern Bosnia and extend across into Servia, in the district of Novibazar. Fine pine forests occur at Semec, on the slopes of the Lim valley, and on the hills between the Lim and Ceatina rivers. Between the middle part of the course of the river Drina in Bosnia and the river Morava in Servia the tree usually grows on palæozoic rocks, though it is occasionally seen on lime- stone. In Servia the forests of Austrian pine are less extensive, but extend from Ivica to Kapaonik. In middle Bosnia, where the tree is found growing on serpentine, and in western Bosnia, it is not at all common.

Elwes saw the tree growing abundantly in the valley of the Drina, as already mentioned in our account of Picea Omorika, and brought home a quantity of seed from this locality in 1901, which he distributed under the MS. name of Pinus Laricio, var. bosniensis, believing at the time that it was not the same variety as the common Austrian pine; but he now considers that the difference observed is no more than might be caused by a good soil and a more southerly and warmer climate.


' Verh. Zool. Bot. Ges. Vienna, xxvi. p. 462.

2 Pflanzenverb. in Karpathen, 104 (1808).

3 Syn. Mitteleurop. Flora, i. 213 (1897).

4 Velenovsky, Flora Bulgarica, 518 (1891).

5 Veg. Illyrischen Länder, 139, 226 (1901).