158 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. conifeiue. 



their pollen has been discharged, are cylindrical, incurved, and from an inch and a half to two inches 

 in length, with dark purple anthers terminating in broad rounded crests denticulate on the margins, 

 and are surrounded by involucres of about twelve concave bracts, those of the lowest pair being not 

 more than half the size of the others and strongly keeled. The pistillate flowers are oval and about 

 half an inch long, with broadly ovate pink scales gradually narrowed into short stout tips and bracts 

 as large as the base of the scales. The cones begin to grow rapidly as soon as the ovules are fertilized, 

 and become horizontal at the end of three or four weeks, when the shoots bearing them, although much 

 lengthened, are still usually leafless ; during the autumn they are pendent, about three quarters of an 

 inch long, one third of an inch thick, and light reddish brown ; when the flowers open in the following 

 winter they are an inch long and three quarters of an inch thick, with thickened scales armed with 

 stout straight or incurved prickles ; and before the end of the following summer they have attained 

 their full size and are ovate or elongated-conical, gradually narrowed to the somewhat obtuse apex, 

 bright green, with dark brown umbos and prickles, short-stalked, pendent, from three to six and a half 

 inches in length and from two to two and a half inches in thickness, with thin flexible flat scales 

 rounded at the apex, their exposed portions, which are conspicuously transversely keeled and slightly 

 thickened, terminating in small transversely flattened umbos armed with minute prickles incurved on 

 the basal scales and recurved on the others ; they turn dark rich lustrous brown, the base of the 

 scales being dark dull purple on the lower side and dull mahogany-red on the upper, and, opening 

 and shedding their seeds in the month of October, remain on the branches until the beginning of the 

 following summer. The seeds are almost triangular, full and rounded on the sides, slightly ridged and 

 rough below, and from one sixth to one quarter of an inch long, with a thin brittle dark gray coat 

 mottled with black and an embryo with from six to nine cotyledons ; their wings are thin and fragile, 

 dark brown, striate, from three quarters of an inch to an inch long and about one quarter of an inch 

 wide, with nearly parallel sides, their thickened bases inclosing the seeds and often covering a large 

 part of their lower surface. 



Pinus heterophylla is distributed from about latitude 33° north in South Carolina southward over 

 the coast plain to the keys of southern Florida and along the Gulf coast to the valley of the Pearl 

 River in Louisiana. It is common on the Bahamas and on several of the West Indian islands, and 

 forms great forests on the highlands of Central America. 



In the south Atlantic states Pinus heterophylla skirts with scattered groves the shores of the 

 numerous inlets and estuaries, 1 and the adjacent islands, and is mingled with the Long-leaved and 

 Loblolly Pines in the open forests of the littoral Pine flats, ranging inland nearly to the limits of the 

 maritime Pine belt, and in Georgia ascending the valley of the Ocmulgee River a hundred miles from 

 the sea ; in Florida, south of Cape Canaveral and Tampa Bay, where it is the only Pine-tree, it crosses 

 the peninsula with pure forests near the coast, and in the interior with small colonies scattered among 

 Live Oaks and other broad-leaved evergreens ; and on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, where it is 

 principally confined to the coast plain, it follows watercourses inland for fifty or sixty miles. 2 



As a timber-tree the Slash Pine, which produces straight sound spars of large dimensions, is little 

 inferior to the Long-leaved Pine, the wood of the two trees being usually manufactured and sold 

 indiscriminately. It is heavy, exceedingly hard, very strong, tough, durable, and coarse-grained ; it is 

 rich dark orange-color, with thick often nearly white sapwood, and contains broad resinous bands of 

 small summer cells occupying at least half the width of the annual growth, few and not large resin 

 passages, and many prominent medullary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 

 0.7504, a cubic foot weighing 46.76 pounds. 



Pinus heterophylla, which is now generally worked for turpentine in the south Atlantic and Gulf 



1 See Garden and Forest, v. 73, f. 14. 2 Mohrj BulL No# 13j DiVi Forestry U. S. Dept. Agric. 75 (The 



Timber Pines of the Southern U. S.~). 



