outdoor hour challenge #5 pine trees and winter wednesdays #5 evergreens

we walked a block to the hudson river park to observe pine trees today. the pines grow in an area that little children like to use as a sledding run when it snows.

 the trees we observed grow next to chanda's favorite climbing tree. the climbing tree is a pine and is the same kind as the second tree we drew. 

 through our observations we concluded that the tree on the left is an eastern white pine, and the tree on the right (along with the one behind it which you really can't see in this picture) is a parry pinyon. (the parry pine is native to california . . i don't know why the gardeners decided to plant it here. i suppose just because they thought it was pretty . . or hardy . . ) 

 

the eastern white pine has beautiful white branches and twigs with dark scars. 

 chanda's eastern white pine drawing. her description says it all. our fingers froze as we tried to draw!

 

it's needles are three to five inches long. 

 

morgana's journal entry for the white pine's needles and cone. there weren't many cones. we didn't see any hanging on the tree, not even at the top. we found this one nestled in the crook of a branch. 

 

now this is where i got confused. most eastern white pines have long vertical ridges along their trunks, or large rectangular blocks. maybe this tree is a teenager . . kind of in between the young smooth bark, and the ridged rectangular blocked bark. 

 

in this picture the bark looks very smooth.

 

this is the parry pinyon. you can see how it's branches grow in whorls round the tree, making it easy for a little girl to climb.

  my journal entry . .

 

the parry pine's needles are one to two inches long. 

 chanda's parry pinecone and needle drawing. the shape of the needle cluster reminded her of the fan-shaped gingko.

 

the parry pine usually has needles in clusters of four. however, they can also have three or five, which is exactly what we found . . needles growing in clusters of three, four and five!

 

here is an old needle cluster of four.

 

the bark is grey and smooth . . indicating that the tree is rather young. 

 

in the few pictures that i found online of the parry pine, it tends to look like a big overgrown bush. 

 we took our samples of needles and cones home to draw.

 

it was much more comfortable recording our observations inside where it was warm and our fingers weren't freezing.

 

we used several books for information. one of them was anne ophelia dowden's the blossom on the bough. the other was discover nature in winter, and also anna comstock's the handbook of nature study.