The coat is shaggy and oily, and is preferred with as little white as possible, but the general black coloration may have rusty shades.
Geuther, who showed that the chief product of the action of sodium on ethyl acetate was a sodium compound of composition C6H903Na, which on treatment with acids gave a colourless, somewhat oily liquid of composition C6H1003.
It is a straight-growing tree, with grey bark and whorls of horizontal branches giving a cylindro-conical outline; the leaves are short, rigid and glaucous; the cones, oblong and rather pointing upwards, grow only near the top of the tree, and ripen in the second autumn; the seeds are oily like those of P. Pinea, and are eaten both on the Alps and by the inhabitants of Siberia; a fine oil is expressed from them which is used both for food and in lamps, but, like that of the Italian pine, it soon turns rancid.
They are relatively large dogs, with broad splay feet, and silky oily coats.
The brown testa contains, in the outer of the four coats into which it is microscopically distinguishable, an abundant secretion of mucilaginous matter; and it has within it a thin layer of albumen, enclosing a pair of large oily cotyledons.