History Of Pine Trees

Since the year eight hundred ten the city of Venice, Italy has been standing strong and mighty with its ever present clock tower, and St. Marks square. What few people know however is that ‘The city of Venice rests on the hearts of Larch.’ In the ninth century the name ‘Pine’ had yet to be coined, so today if you translate that saying, you get, ‘The city of Venice rests on the hearts of Pine.’ Today heart Pine is a very valuable building commodity, so imagine that the entire city of Venice rests on hundreds of thousands of antique, ‘hearts of pine,’ trunk, bark and all.
 
Pine trees throughout the world, have, since the beginning of time, been a key factor in the advancement of man kind. When cave men discovered fire, it was such a hot commodity that in order to keep their precious new discovery burning throughout the night, they would collect pine cones from the forests of towering pine trees and place them on the smoldering embers. The resin would act with the moisture of the pine cones and burn for hours. The next morning the Neanderthals were able to stoke the fire, and billows of smoke would come wisping out and as they added twigs of slag pine, and small, dry, kindling, branches the flames would begin to pour forth. The men would catch fish with triton’s made from twisted and carved pine tree branches, and kill boar, and small game with spears carved from the small, strait, trunks of young pine trees. As the women would make loin cloths from the skins of large animals and cook food over flames, the men were experimenting with building. It is thought by some that the caveman evolved into the Neanderthal when he learned how to build. The evolving men would drive posts into the ground and strap pine tree limbs to the top using the sinews of animals, and resin from the pine tree was used to help secure pine tree needles to the roof for shelter.
 
Pine trees are evergreen, coniferous, (conebearing) trees that are found in all parts of the world (six of seven continents). There are approximately one hundred twenty species of pine trees. There are short pine trees, tall pine trees, wide pine trees, skinny pine trees and colored Pine trees. Pine trees have green to bluish grey leaves in the form of needles that are arranged in bundles of two to five or six to eight, depending on species. The cones of pine trees range in size from ½” to 12 inches. The Longleaf pine, Pinus paulustris, bears one of the largest cones, up to 10 inches and the Mugo pine, Pinus mugo, has one of the smallest cones at ¾” to 2″. Pine trees can tower to 130 feet high, such as the Longleaf pine, or grow to a shrubby 8 feet high, such as Mugo pines. 

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