Foxtail Pine Tree
The Foxtail Pines include two species whose branchlets are clothed with crowded leaf bundles, while the branches are bare. P. Balfouriana, M. Murr., has stiff, stout, dark-green leaves lightened by pale linings. The tree forms an open pyramid of more or less irregularity when old, but picturesque, whether a tree of 40 to So feet on the higher foothills of the California mountains or a straggling shrub at the timber line.P. aristata, Engelm., the other species, has the same brushof-a-fox leaf distribution, and it is distinguished by the long slender prickles which arm the scales of its cones, giving the tree its common name, " prickle-cone pine." The tree is bushy, with whorls of short branches, regular at first, but unsymmetrical when old. Its range extends from western Colorado to southern California and includes Nevada and Arizona. It keeps as close as possible to the timber line, and varies from a stocky tree 40 feet high to a prostrate shrub. In cultivation in the Eastern States it is a handsome, bushy shrub.