THK CUBAN PINE. 



By CuAiii.Kw MOHR, Ph. 1) 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Confined withiu narrow limits along the coast of tbe extreme Southern States east of the 

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

 Pine 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 gron^th soon discloses its economic importance. 

 Convinced that to meet proper appreciation tlie 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 ' 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.- 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 DISTBlBUTtON. 



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

 the Mississippi Kiver, 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-ripariau 

 or Louisianian 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 (rulf 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 in the valley of the Ocmulgee River, over 100 

 miles distant from tide water, (iroves 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 and the Longleaf Pine, it forms a part of the timber growth of the open pine forests 

 which in unbroken monotony cover the fiats 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 



'Elliott, Sketches of the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia, Vol. II, page 263, 1821. 



- Eugelmaim : Revision of the genus Pinii-i and description of riniis eUiotiii. Transactions St. Louis Acad. Sci., 

 Vol. IV, 186, 1879. 



79 



