pitch-tree
[f. pitch n.1 + tree n.]
Name for various coniferous trees abounding in resin, or yielding resin, turpentine, or pitch.
In earlier use chiefly rendering L. picea or Gr. πεύκη, prob. Pinus Laricio, the Corsican Pine (Daubeny); in mod. use applied to the Silver Fir (Abies or Picea pectinata), the Spruce Fir (Abies or Picea excelsa) as the source of Burgundy pitch, the Kauri Pine (Dammara australis) as that of kauri-gum, and the Amboyna Pine (D. orientalis) as that of dammar resin.
| 1538 Elyot, Picea, a piche tree. 1577 B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. (1586) 95 The Pitch tree is called in Greeke πεύκη, in Latine Picea, in Italian Pezzo. 1584 Voy. Virginia in Hakluyt Voy. (1810) III. 303 Their boates are made of one tree, either of Pine or of Pitch trees: a wood not commonly knowen to our people, nor found growing in England. 1697 Dryden Virg. Georg. ii. 349 Black Ivy, Pitch Trees, and the baleful Yeugh. 1766 Compl. Farmer s.v. Aphernousli, The branches resemble these of the pitch-trees, commonly called the spruce fir. 1866 Treas. Bot., Pitch-tree, Abies excelsa. |