THE CUBAN PINE. 



By CHARLES MOHK, Ph. D. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Confined within narrow limits along the coast of the extreme Southern States east of the 

 Mississippi Eiver, little known and mostly confounded with its allied species, the value of the Cuban 

 Piue has been scarcely recognized. A closer investigation of the properties of its wood, of its life 

 history, and of the part it plays among the forest growth soon discloses its economic importance. 

 Convinced that to meet proper appreciation the merits possessed by this pine need only to be 

 made more generally known, their consideration in this place among the biological investigations 

 of the more important timber trees of the coniferous order will explain itself. 



This tree was not known to the earlier American botanists. Elliott first 1 took notice of it as 

 a distinct form, and he regarded it as a variety of the Loblolly Pine. It remained still practically 

 unknown as a separate species for another half century, until near the beginning of the past decade, 

 when it was again brought to the notice of botanists by Dr. Mellichamp, of Bluffton, S. C.; Dr. 

 Engelmann exhibited clearly its specific characters, and for the first time directed attention 

 to the economic value of this pine by discussing the development of the tree and the qualities of 

 its timber. 2 On account of the coarser grain of its wood and the large amount of sapwood, this 

 timber was held to be of little value, and the tree received little or no attention by the lumberman. 

 It is only very lately, especially since kiln-drying has become more general, that its value is being 

 recognized and appreciated, and under the name of "Slash Pine" it is cut and sold without 

 discrimination with the Longleaf Pine, with which it is usually associated. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 



The Cuban Piue is a tree of the coast region in the subtropical region of North America east of 

 the Mississippi River, and also of the neighboring tropics, being found in Honduras and Cuba 

 (see PI. III). In the United States the tree is confined to the eastern belt of the Austro-riparian 

 or Louisianiau life zone of American biologists, from 33 north latitude in South Carolina along 

 the coast to the extremity of the peninsula of Florida. Toward the west the tree extends 

 along the coast of the Gulf to the Pearl River Valley. It is principally restricted to the coast 

 plain, but on the Gulf Coast and along the water courses it extends inland to a distance of fully 

 60 miles from the sea. On the Atlantic Coast it penetrates the interior nearly to the limit of the 

 coast pine belt, as has been observed in Georgia iu the valley of the Ocmulgee River, over 100 

 miles distant from tide water. Groves of the Cuban Pine skirt the low shores of the numerous 

 inlets and estuaries of these coasts, and cover the outlying islands. More or less associated with 

 the Loblolly arid the Longleaf Pine, it forms a pan of the timber growth of the open pine forests 

 which iu unbroken monotony cover the flats for long distances. It is only in the lower part of 

 Florida, where the tree extends from the Atlantic across to the Gulf of Mexico, south of Cape 

 Canaveral and Biscayne Bay, that, as the only pine there, the Cuban Pine forms forests by itself. 

 Toward the interior it occurs scattered among the varied growth of broad-leafed evergreens and 

 cone-bearing trees which cover the swamps along the streams. Since it is invariably cut and sold 



1 Elliott, Sketches of the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia, Vol. II, page 263, 1824.' 



' Kngelmami: Revision of the genns 1'inus and description of Pinus elliottii. Transactions St. Louis Acad. Sci., 



Vol. IV, 186,1879. 



79 



