2238 



ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. 



PART 111. 



2120 



is nothing more than the P. serotina 

 of Michaux, but Lambert thinks it a va- 

 riety of P. ngida. 



Description. A lofty tree, often, in America, 

 upwards of 80 ft. high, with a trunk sometimes 

 clear of branches to the height of 50 ft., and from 

 2 ft. to 3 ft. in diameter, with a wide-spreading 

 head. The leaves are broad, pointed, flat on the 

 upper surface, and forming a ridge below ; of a 

 fine light green, with a sheath long and whitish at 

 first, but becoming short, thick, and brown when 

 old. The cones are about 4 in. in length ; and the 

 scales terminate in processes which have the form 

 of an elongated pyramid, somewhat in the manner 

 of P. Pinaster ; but the apex of the pyramid 

 terminates in a thick sharp prickle, somewhat in 

 the manner of P. pungens, and turned upwards. 

 When the cone opens, the elongation of the pro- 

 cess contracts laterally, and it then assumes the 

 form of a regular rhomboid. The timber is said by Michaux to have a large 

 proportion of sap wood, which arises from the rapid growth of the tree, 

 and the consequent thickness of its annual layers. In England, in the 

 climate of London, P. TVda grows vigorously, there being large trees 'at Syon 

 and at Kew, which, after being 50 years planted, produce shoots of from 9 in. 

 to 1 ft. every year. At Dropmore, a tree, of which Jig. 2122. is a portrait to 

 a scale of 1 in. to 12 ft., after being 41 years planted, was, in 1837, 37 ft. high. 



Geography and History. P. TVda, according to Pursh, is found in bar- 

 ren sandy situations, from Florida to Virginia. All the woods in the 

 southern states, he says, seem to be seeded with, it ; for, when any piece of 

 clear land is neglected for any length of time, it is speedily covered" with this 

 species ; and hence its name, amongst the inhabitants, of Oldfield pine. It is 

 difficult, and in some cases almost impracticable, he adds, to recover the lands 

 which have been overrun with young pines of this species, as the ground ap- 

 pears to have lost all fertile properties for any other vegetable than these 

 trees. Michaux, whose account Pursh characterises as very correct and in- 

 structive, says that P. 7'ae v da is found in the 

 lower part of Virginia, and in the districts of 

 North Carolina situated north-east of the ri- 

 ver of Cape Fear, over an extent of nearly 200 



miles ; always growing in dry sandy soil. On 



spots consisting of red clay mixed with gravel, 



it is supplanted by the yellow pine (P. mitis 



Michx.), and by different species of oak ; the 



two pines regularly alternating according to 



the varieties in the soil ; and frequently vanish- 

 ing and reappearing at intervals of three or 



four miles. " In the same parts of Virginia," he 



adds, " this species exclusively occupies lands 



that have been exhausted by cultivation ; and, 



amid forests of oak, tracts of 100 or 200 acres 



are not unfrequently seen covered with thriving 



young pines. In the more southern states, it 



is the most common species after the long- 

 leaved pine (P. australis) ; but it grows only 



in the branch swamps, or long narrow marshes 



that intersect the pine barrens, and near the 



creeks and rivers, where the soil is of middling 



2121 



fertility, and susceptible of improvement : such 

 is the vicinity of Charleston, in South Caro- 



