CONIFERS 



31 



and later light gray-brown ; toward the western limits of its range a tree frequently 

 100 tall, with a trunk 2lo-3 in diameter. Bark of the trunk ^'-h' thick, broken 

 by shallow fissures into flat plate-like scales separating on the surface into thin 

 closely appressed dark brown scales tinged with red. "Wood light, soft, not strong, 

 brittle, coarse-grained, durable in contact with the soil, light orange color, with 

 thick nearly white sapwood ; often used for fuel and occasionally manufactured into 

 lumber. 



Distribution. Long Island, New York, southward generally near the coast to 

 the valley of the Savannah River, Georgia, to northeastern Alabama and through 

 eastern and middle Tennessee and Kentucky to southern Indiana ; usually small in 

 the Atlantic states and only on light sandy soil, spreading rapidly over exhausted 

 fields ; attaining its largest size west of the Alleghany Mountains on the low hills 

 of southern Indiana. 



31. Pinus clausa, Sarg. Sand Pine. Spruce Pine. 



Leaves slender, flexible, dark green, 2'-3^' long, marked by 10-20 rows of sto- 

 mata, deciduous during their third and fourth y^ars. Flowers : staminate in short 

 crowded spikes, dark orange 

 color; pistillate lateral on stout 

 peduncles. Fruit ovoid-conical, 

 often oblique at the base, usu- 

 ally clustered and reflexed, 2'- 

 3^' long, nearly sessile or short- 

 stalked, with concave scales 

 armed with short stout straight 

 or recurved deciduous prickles, 

 becoming dark reddish brown 

 in the autumn; some of the 

 cones opening at once, others re- 

 maining closed for three or four 

 years before liberating their 

 seeds, ultimately turning to an 

 ashy gray color; others still un- 

 opened becoming enveloped in the growing tissues of the stem and branches and 

 finally entirely covered by them ; seeds nearly triangular, compressed, i' long, with 

 a black slightly roughened shell, their wings widest near or below the middle, ^' long, 

 about \' wide. 



A tree, usually 15-20 high, with a stem rarely a foot in diameter, generally 

 clothed to the ground with wide-spreading branches forming a bushy flat-topped 

 head, and slender tough flexible branchlets, pale yellow-green when they first appear, 

 becoming light orange-brown and ultimately ashy gray ; occasionally growing to 

 the height of 70-80 with a trunk 2 in diameter. Bark on the lower part of 

 the trunk ^' ^' thick, deeply divided by narrow fissures into irregularly shaped 

 generally oblong plates separating on the surface into thin closely appressed bright 

 red-brown scales; on the upper part of the trunk and on the branches thin, 

 smooth, ashy gray. Wood light, soft, not strong, brittle, light orange color or 

 yellow, with thick nearly white sapwood; occasionally used for the masts of small 

 vessels. 



Distribution. Coast of the Gulf of Mexico from southern Alabama to Peace 



l^icj.33 



