46 



The Pines 



The tree, on account of its rapid growth, is very valuable in regions of shifting 

 sand, as a binder of the soil. 



It is also known as Old field pine, Spruce pine, Scrub pine, and Florida spruce 

 pine. 



34. JERSEY PINE Pinus virginiana IMiller 

 Pinus inops Alton 



This tree grows in poor rocky or sandy soil from southern New York to In- 

 diana, southward to Georgia and Alabama, is very abundant in Maryland and 

 Virginia, but reaches its largest size, 36 meters tall, with trunk diameter of i m., 

 in southern Indiana. Its usual height is about 12 meters. 



The trunk is short, its branches long, spreading or pendulous, in remote whorls 



forming a broad rather flat-topped conic tree. 

 The bark is up to 12 mm. thick, shallowly 

 fissured into flat plates with thin close dark 

 brown scales on its surface. The slender 

 twigs are tough and pHable, smooth, purple, 

 with a bluish bloom, finally becoming grayish 

 brown, and roughened by the thickened 

 bases of the bud-scales; branch-buds ovoid, 

 8 to 12 mm. long, sharp-pointed, their scales 

 dark brown with dryish margins. The leaves 

 are in sheathed fascicles of 2, deep green and 

 shining, 4 to 7 cm. long, i mm. thick, rather 

 stout, soft, flexible and more or less twisted, 

 finely toothed, sharply thick-tipped, marked 

 by many rows of small stomata, usually 

 Fig. 36. Jersey Pine. containing 2 resin-ducts and 2 fibro vascu- 



lar bundles; they are very fragrant, rather 

 closely dispersed on the twigs and persist for three or four years. The staminate 

 flowers are crowded, oblong, about 10 mm. long, their anthers yellow-brown. 

 The pistillate flowers are lateral, near the middle of young shoots, are long- 

 stalked, subglobose, their scales ovate, slender-tipped, pale green with a reddish 

 tinge. The cones are sessile, or nearly so, spreading, narrowly conic when closed, 

 ovoid when open, 4 to 7 cm. long, dark red-brown, opening in the autumn of the 

 second season and slowly dropping their seed, often persisting for three or four 

 years. The scales are thin, nearly flat, slightly thickened, conspicuously ridged 

 and raised into a small dark knob, armed with a persistent, slender curved spine; 

 they are dull red on the unexposed surfaces. The seed is obHquely oblong, about 

 5 mm. long, with rounded sides, slightly ridged and rough, pale brown, the wing 

 1.5 cm. long, broadest at the middle, dark brown, striped and shining; cotyle- 

 dons 5. 



The wood is soft, weak, and brittle, close-grained, light orange-colored with 



