28 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



black slightly roughened shell, their wings widest near or below the middle, f ' long, 

 about \' wide. 



A tree, usually 15-20 high, with a stem rarely a foot in diameter, generally clothed to 

 the ground with wide-spreading branches forming a bushy flat-topped head, and slender 



tough flexible branchlets, pale yel- 

 low-green when they first appear, 

 becoming light orange-brown and 

 ultimately ashy gray; occasionally 

 growing to the height of 70-80 

 with a trunk 2 in diameter. Bark 

 on the lower part of the trunk 

 i' I' thick, deeply divided by nar- 

 row fissures into irregularly shaped 

 generally oblong plates separating 

 on the surface into thin closely ap- 

 pressed bright red-brown scales; 

 on the upper part of the trunk and 

 on the branches thin, smooth, ashy 

 gray. Wood light, soft, not strong, 

 brittle, light orange color or yel- 

 low, with thick nearly white sap- 

 Fig. 32 wood; occasionally used for the 



masts of small vessels. 



Distribution. Coast of the Gulf of Mexico from southern Alabama to Peace Creek, 

 western Florida; eastern Florida from the neighborhood of St. Augustine to Xew River, 

 Dade County, covering sandy wind-swept plains near the coast; growing to its largest 

 size and most abundant in the interior of the peninsula (Lake and Orange Counties). 



26. Pinus muricata D. Don. Prickle-cone Pine. 



Leaves in crowded clusters, thick, rigid, dark yellow-green, 4'-6' long, beginning to fall 

 in their second year. Flowers: male in elongated spikes, orange-colored; female short- 



Fig. 33 



stalked, whorled, 2 whorls often being produced on the shoot of the year. Fruit ovoid, 

 oblique at base, sessile, in clusters of 3-5 or sometimes of 7, 2'-3|' but usually about 

 3' long, becoming light chestnut-brown and lustrous, with scales much thickened on the 



