CONIFERS. 



8ILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



159 



states, is rich in resinous products, yielding freely a limpid pale yellow turpentine, less viscid and 

 probably richer in volatile oil than that of the Long-leaved Pine. 1 



Pinus heterophylla was first distinguished in the United States early in the century by Stephen 

 Elliott, 2 who considered it a variety of the Loblolly Pine ; overlooked again for half a century, its true 

 characters were finally made known through the observations of Dr. J. H. MeUichamp 3 of South 

 Carolina, although the West Indian tree had been described a few years earlier. 



The most beautiful of the Pines of the southern states, the broad compact shapely dark heads 

 of the Slash Pine raised on massive trunks stand out boldly among the more open-headed and less 

 symmetrical Long-leaved and Loblolly Pines, which it seems destined gradually to replace and to 

 become a chief factor in the restoration of the southern pineries. For its seedlings, produced in great 

 numbers every year, are able to thrive without direct sunlight, and, overcoming the more slowly growing 

 seedlings of the other species, sooner attain sufficient size to resist the fires which endanger all young 

 plants in the maritime Pine belt of the south. 4 



1 Mohr, Bull. No. 13, Div. Forestry U. S. Dept. Agric. 76 {The 

 Timber Pines of the Southern U. S.). 



2 Stephen Elliott (November 11, 1771-March 28, 1830) was a 

 direct descendant of William Elliott, a leading merchant of 

 Charleston, who arrived from England in 1670, and on the mater- 

 nal side a great grandson of John Barnvillc. He was born in Gif- 

 ford, South Carolina, was graduated from Yale College at the age 

 of twenty, and studied medicine, although he never practiced the 

 profession. In 1793 he was elected a. member of the legislature 

 of South Carolina, continuing to represent his district until 1812, 

 when he was chosen president of the New State Bank of South 

 Carolina, a position which he filled until his death. In 1813 Mr. 

 Elliott took an active part in establishing the Philosophical Society 

 of South Carolina, of which he was the president. He was a con- 

 stant contributor and probably the real editor of the Southern 

 Review ; and in 1825, on the organization of the Medical College 

 of South Carolina, he was appointed professor of natural history 

 and botany in that institution. Interested from boyhood in liter- 

 ary and scientific studies, Mr. Elliott devoted particular attention 

 to the plants of his native state, the result of these observations 

 being published in his Sketch of the Botany of South Carolina and 

 Georgia, a classical work upon which his reputation as a man of 

 science now rests. It appeared in parts in two volumes, between 

 1816 and 1824, and contains accurate descriptions in Latin and 

 English of the plants of the region, with numerous observations 

 upon their medicinal properties furnished by Dr. Thomas McBride. 

 Mr. Elliott's herbarium is preserved in the Charleston Museum. 



The name of Stephen Elliott is also preserved by Elliottia, a 

 genus of plants of the Heath family of his discovery, which was 

 established by Muehlenberg and consists of three shrubs, the type 

 being one of the rarest of North American plants, and the others 

 common inhabitants of the forests of northern Japan. (See Garden 

 and Forest, vii. 204, f. 36, for portrait of Stephen Elliott.) 



8 See viii. 144. 



4 Germinating easily, the seedlings appear in great numbers 



from early spring to the beginning of summer in old fields and in 

 openings of the forest wherever the rays of the sun can reach the 

 ground. As soon as the cotyledons have expanded, the terminal 

 bud develops quickly and the first internode of the stem, lengthen- 

 ing rapidly, is covered with soft linear acute primary leaves about 

 an inch long. Before the end of the second month clusters of the 

 foliage leaves make their appearance in the axils of some of the 

 primary leaves, and at the end of the first season the young plants 

 are from eight to nine inches high, with slender tap-roots and 

 many lateral rootlets. At the end of their second year they are 

 from twelve to fifteen inches in height, with slender tap-roots not 

 more than four inches in length, and at the end of their third year 

 they are often nearly two feet high, with lateral branches devel- 

 oped in regular whorls. Trees from ten to twelve years of age 

 measure from ten to eighteen feet in height, with stems clear for 

 half their length and from two to four inches in diameter. Trees 

 from eighteen to twenty years old are from forty to fifty feet high, 

 with stems eight or ten inches in diameter at the ground. Second- 

 growth trees examined by Dr. Mohr near Mobile, forming open 

 groves on soil deficient in drainage, were found to vary from sixty- 

 five to eighty-five feet in height, and from fifteen to twenty inches 

 in diameter breast-high, while trees of second-growth sprung up on 

 better drained soil, with free exposure to sunlight and air, reach 

 their full size in half the time required by trees growing naturally 

 in forest-covered swamps. 



From Dr. Mohr's observations it appears that the greatest mass 

 of wood for any decade is formed by this species when the trees 

 are about fifty years old, the annual growth and volume being 

 nearly fifteen cubic feet for the preceding ten years, that at the 

 age of ninety the growth and volume are only about two thirds of 

 the maximum ; and that when the trees are one hundred years old 

 the average annual growth nearly equals the current growth, indi- 

 cating that they are then ripe for the axe as far as probable de- 

 velopment, represented in volume accretion, is concerned. (See 

 Mohr, I. c. 81.) 



