18 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



Distribution. Generally confined to a belt of late tertiary sands and gravels 

 stretching along the coast of the Atlantic and Gulf states and rarely more than 125 

 miles wide, from southeastern Virginia to Cape Canaveral and the shores of Tampa 

 Bay, Florida, and along the Gulf coast to the uplands east of the Mississippi River, 

 extending northward in Alabama to the southern foothills of the Appalachian Moun- 

 tains; west of the Mississippi River to the valley of the Trinity River, and through 

 eastern Texas and western Louisiana nearly to the northern borders of this state. 



-^-t-Cones lateral. 



17. Pinua Caribsea, Morelet. Slash Pine. Swamp Pine. 



(Pinus heterophylla, Silva N. Am. xi. 157.) 



Leaves stout, in crowded 2 and 3-leaved clusters, dark green and lustrous, 

 marked by numerous bands of stomata on each face, 8'-12' long, deciduous at the 

 end of their second season. Flowers in January and February before the appear- 

 ance of the new leaves, staminate in short crowded clusters, dark purple; pistillate 

 on long peduncles, pink. Fruit ovate or elongated, reflexed during its first year, 

 conical, pendant, 3'-6' long, with thin flexible flat scales armed with minute incurved 

 or recurved prickles, becoming dark rich lustrous brown ; seeds almost triangular, 



full and rounded on the sides, l^'-l^' long, with a thin brittle dark gray shell mottled 

 with black, and dark brown wings |'-1' long and \' wide, their thickened bases en- 

 circling the seeds and often covering a large part of their lower surface. 



A tree, often 100 high, with a tall tapering trunk 2^-3 in diameter, heavy hori- 

 zontal branches forming a handsome round-topped head, and stout orange-colored 

 ultimately dark branchlets. Bark f'-' thick, and irregularly divided by shallow 

 fissures into thin dark red-brown scales. Wood heavy, exceedingly hard, very strong, 

 durable, coarse-grained, rich dark orange color, with thick nearly white sapwood ; 

 manufactured into lumber and used for construction and railway-ties. Naval stores 

 are largely produced from this tree. 



Distribution. Coast region of South Carolina southward over the coast plain to 

 the keys of southern Florida and along the Gulf coast to the valley of the Pearl River, 

 Louisiana; common on the Bahamas, on the Isle of Pines, and on the highlands of 



