52 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



bears considerable resemblance to spruce, which probably accounts for 

 the name of the tree. 



I'.Mti.i: MOUNTAIN PiNB (Pinus pungens). The French botanist, Michaux 

 the younger, has been criticized for the statement which he made more than a hundred 

 years ago that this species was confined to a certain flat- topped mountain in the 

 southern Appalachian ranges, and he called it table mountain pine. It lacked much 

 of being confined within the narrow limits where it was discovered. It grows in 

 New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, 

 Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia. Its other names are prickly 

 pine, hickory pine, and southern mountain pine. It supplies timber in all parts of its 

 range, but, except in very restricted localities, it is not abundant. The lumber in the 

 market is seldom distinguished from other pines, but some of the Tennessee mills sell 

 it separately to local customers. The wood is medium light, rather strong (about 

 like Pinus rigida, or pitch pine, which it resembles in other respects), is less stiff than 

 white pine, and is resinous. The thick sapwood is nearly white, the heartwood 

 brown. It is not a durable timber in contact with the ground. Its fuel value is low. 

 Its needles grow in clusters of two, and are generally less than two inches long. The 

 cones which are in clusters of from three to eight, and from two to three and a half 

 inches long, are armed with stout, curved hooks. The cones shed their seeds irregu- 

 larly during two or three years, and sometimes hang on the trees for twenty years. 

 In open ground this pine occasionally produces fertile seeds when only a few feet 

 high. Its forest form and open-ground form are quite different. In thick woods the 

 tree is tall, with good bole, but in open ground it is only twenty or thirty feet high, and 

 is covered with limbs almost to the ground. 



