THE CONIFEROUS FORESTS OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 20I 



some uneducated people to believe that the long-leaf does not 

 reproduce itself after lumbering, but mutates into another species. 

 Some writers on forestry also have been misled into thinking 

 that P. Elliottii is destined to take the place of P. palustris in the 

 not distant future. But the range of the slash pine is much the 

 smaller of the two, and it has shown no evidence of extending 

 its boundaries since it was first recognised as a distinct species, 

 about 35 years ago. 



It is not injured perceptibly by fire, except when very young. 

 Its economic properties are practically the same as those of the 

 long-leaf pine, from which it is seldom distinguished in the 

 lumber and naval stores markets. Its distribution corresponds 

 approximately with that of the sea-island cotton crop, except 

 that this cotton is not now raised west of the Chattahoochee 

 River, while the pine extends nearly to the Pearl River. 



The Florida Spruce Pine {Pinus clausa), a near relative of 

 P. Virgintana, is the least widely distributed of all the eastern 

 conifers, being almost confined to one state. It ranges from 

 Baldwin County on the coast of Alabama to Dade County, 

 Florida, about latitude 26°. Like the somewhat similar jack 

 pine of the north, it is confined to the most sterile soils imagin- 

 able, where other pines are scarce or absent. Its favourite soil, 

 about 99 per cent, white sand, is most extensively developed in 

 the lake region of peninsular Florida, where it supports a 

 peculiar type of vegetation known as " scrub," consisting mostly 

 of this pine, two small evergreen oaks [Quercus geminata and 

 Q. myrtifolia), saw-palmetto and several other evergreen shrubs, 

 with very little herbaceous growth : grasses and leguminous 

 plants especially being conspicuous by their absence. Outside 

 of the lake region this type of soil and vegetation is principally 

 confined to old stationary dunes near the coasts. 



Fire sweeps through the scrub on the average about once in 

 the lifetime of the trees, as in the boreal conifer forests, and kills 

 the pines completely ; but their cones, which normally remain 

 closed for years, then open and discharge seeds for a new 

 crop. 



The wood of this pine is of little value, and the soil in which 

 it grows is worthless for ordinary crops. But on the east coast 

 of Florida south of latitude 28°, where frost is sufficiently rare to 

 make such ventures profitable, large areas of old dunes have 

 been cleared of their spruce pines and planted with pineapples. 



