120 8ILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. conifers. 



to two and a half inches in length and are oblong, cylindrical, and nearly an inch long, with dark 

 orange-colored anthers terminating in orbicular denticulate crests, and are surrounded by from six to 

 eio-ht involucral bracts. The pistillate flowers are lateral, clustered or in pairs on stout peduncles 

 three eighths of an inch in length, and covered by broadly ovate acute dark chestnut-brown bracts 

 scarious and lacerate on the margins, especially those of the inner ranks, and are ovate-oblong, with 

 scales gradually narrowed into slender incurved tips. The young cones are horizontal during their first 

 winter, and from one half to five eighths of an inch long, with thickened light brown scales armed with 

 stout incurved spines ; when fully grown they are subglobose or obovate-oblong, full and rounded or 

 pointed at the apex, bright green, from two to two and a half inches long, horizontal or slightly 

 declinate, and subsessile or short-stalked, with thin nearly flat scales rounded at the apex, their exposed 

 portions, which are conspicuously transversely keeled and slightly thickened, terminating in small 

 oblong dark umbos armed with slender incurved mostly deciduous prickles; they turn light yellow- 

 brown and remain closed until the end of one or two years more, and then remain on the branches for 

 several years longer. The seeds are nearly triangular, often ridged below, full and rounded on the 

 sides, and about an eighth of an inch long, with a thin nearly black tuberculate coat produced into a 

 wide marginal border, and an embryo with from four to six cotyledons ; their wings are thin and fragile, 

 dark brown, striate and lustrous, broadest at the middle, gradually narrowed at the ends, three quarters 

 of an inch long and one quarter of an inch wide. 



Pinus serotina is distributed from North Carolina southward in the neighborhood of the coast to 

 the shores of the St. John's River in northern Florida, growing on low flats with Pinus palustris, or 

 in sandy or peaty swamps, where, associated with Magnolias, Bays, and Gum-trees, it is the only Pine 

 of large areas, or is mingled with Pinus Tceda. 



The wood of Pinus serotina is very resinous, heavy, soft, brittle, and coarse-grained ; it is dark 

 orange-color, with thick pale yellow sapwood, and contains broad bands of small summer cells, often 

 constituting nearly one half the annual growth, large conspicuous dark-colored resin passages, and 

 numerous obscure medullary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7942, a cubic 

 foot weighing 49.49 pounds. It is said to furnish now a considerable part of the lumber cut on the 

 coast of North Carolina, where this tree is also tapped for the production of turpentine, 1 and formerly 

 was used for the masts of small vessels. 2 



1 Fernow, Garden and Forest, x. 209. 2 Ruffin, Russell's Magazine, iv. 144. 



