CONIFERS 



19 



Central America; in the coast region of the southern states gradually replacing the 

 Long-leaved Pine, Pinus palustris, Mill. 



18. Pinus Taeda, L. Loblolly Pine. Old Field Pine. 



Leaves slender, stiff, slightly twisted, pale green and somewhat glaucous, 6'-9' 

 long, marked by 10-12 rows of large stomata on each face, deciduous during their 

 third year. Flow- 

 ers opening from 

 the middle of March 

 to the first of May; 

 staminate crowded 

 in short spikes, yel- 

 low; pistillate lateral 

 below the apex of the 

 growing shoot, soli- 

 tary or clustered, 

 short - stalked, yel- 

 low. Fruit ovate- 

 oblong to broadly 

 conical, nearly ses- 

 sile, 3'-5' long, be- 

 coming light reddish 

 brown, with thin 



scales rounded at the apex and armed with short stout straight or reflexed prickles, 

 opening irregularly and discharging their seeds during the autumn and winter, and 

 usually persistent on the branches for another year; seeds rhomboidal, full and 

 rounded, \' long, with a thin dark brown rough shell blotched with black, and pro- 

 duced into broad thin lateral margins, encircled to the base by the narrow border of 

 their thin pale brown lustrous wings broadest above the middle, V long and about 

 \' wide. 



A tree, generally 80-100 high, with a tall straight trunk usually about 2 but occa- 

 sionally 5 in diameter, short thick much divided branches, the lower spreading, the 

 upper ascending and forming a compact round-topped head, and comparatively slender 

 glabrous branchlets brown tinged with yellow and covered with a glaucous bloom dur- 

 ing their first season and gradually growing darker in their second year. Bark of 

 the trunk |'-1^' thick, bright red-brown, and irregularly divided by shallow fissures 

 into broad flat ridges covered with large thin closely appressed scales. Wood weak, 

 brittle, coarse-grained, not durable, light brown, with orange-colored or often nearly 

 white sap wood, often composing nearly half the trunk; largely manufactured into 

 lumber, used for construction and the interior finish of buildings. 



Distribution. Cape May, New Jersey, southward near the coast to Cape Malabar 

 and the shores of Tampa Bay, Florida, westward to middle North Carolina and through 

 South Carolina and Georgia and the eastern Gulf states to the Mississippi River, ex- 

 tending into southern Tennessee ; west of the Mississippi River from southern Arkan- 

 sas and the southwestern part of the Indian Territory through western Louisiana to 

 the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and through eastern Texas to the valley of the 

 Colorado River; on the Atlantic coast often springing up on lands exhausted by 

 agriculture; west of the Mississippi River one of the most important timber-trees, 

 frequently growing in great nearly pure forests on rolling uplands. 



