18 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



stout bright green branchlets becoming dull orange color during their first winter and dark 

 gray-brown at the end of four or five years; often fruitful when only a few feet high. Bark 

 of young stems thin and broken into plate-like dark red-brown scales, becoming ton old 

 trunks t'-l|' thick, deeply and irregularly fissured, and divided into broad flat connected 

 ridges separating on the surface into thick dark red-brown scales often tinged with purple. 

 Wood light, soft, not strong, brittle, coarse-grained, very durable, light brown or red, 

 with thick yellow or often white sap-wood; largely used for fuel and in the manufacture 

 of charcoal; occasionally sawed into lumber. 



Distribution. Sandy plains and dry gravelly uplands, or less frequently in cold deep 

 swamps; island of Mt. Desert, Maine, to the northern shores of Lake Ontario, and south- 

 ward to southern Delaware and southern Ohio (Scioto County) and along the Appalachian 

 Mountains to northern Georgia and to their w r estern foothills in West ^ 7 irginia, Kentucky, 

 and Tennessee; very abundant in the coast region south of Massachusetts; sometimes 

 forming pure forests in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. 



Pinus rigida var. serotina Loud. Pond Pine. Marsh Pine. 



Pinus serotina Michx. 



Leaves in clusters of 3 or occasionally of 4, slender, flexuose, dark yellow-green, 6 '-8' 

 long, marked by numerous rows of stomata on the 3 faces, deciduous during their third and 



fourth years. Flowers: male 

 in crowded spikes, dark orange 

 color; female clustered or in 

 pairs on stout stems. Fruit 

 subglobose to ovoid, full and 

 rounded or pointed at apex, 

 subsessileor short-stalked,hor- 

 izontal or slightly declining, 

 2-2V long, with thin nearly 

 fiat scales armed with slender 

 incurved mostly deciduous 

 prickles, becoming light yel- 

 low-brown at maturity, often 

 remaining closedfor one or two 

 years and after opening long- 

 persistent on the branches; 

 seeds nearlv triangular, often 



20 ridged below, full and rounded 



at the sides, ' long, with a 



thin nearly black roughened shell produced into a wide border, the wings broadest at the 

 middle, gradually narrowed at the ends, f ' long, i' wide. 



A tree, usually 40-50 or occasionally 70-80' high, with a short trunk sometimes 3 

 but generally not more than 2 in diameter, stout often contorted branches more or less 

 pendulous at the extremities, forming an open round-topped head, and slender branchlets 

 dark green when they first appear, becoming dark orange color during their first winter 

 and dark brown or often nearly black at the end of four or five years. Bark of the trunk 

 5'-!' thick, dark red-brown and irregularly divided by narrow shallow fissures into small 

 plates separating on the surface into thin closely appressed scales. Wood very resinous, 

 heavy, soft, brittle, coarse-grained, dark orange color, with thick pale yellow sap wood; 

 occasionally manufactured into lumber. 



Distribution. Low wet flats or sandy or peaty swamps; ne'ar Cape May, New Jersey, 

 and southeastern Virginia southward near the coast to northern Florida and central Ala- 

 bama. 



