ILLINOIS TREES: SELECTION, PLANTING, AND CARE 93 



seeds. The yellowish to light brown flesh of the fruit is very 

 delicious and is used to make a rich and appetizing pudding. 



The heavy, dense, hard wood of persimmon is used exten- 

 sively in making wood articles which must withstand hard use. 

 The heartwood is black and is sometimes called American ebony. 

 Persimmon wilt, the only destructive disease of persimmon, has 

 killed many trees in the southeastern states but has not been 

 found in Illinois. 



Pine 



Pines are quite resistant to injury by ice and wind, and are 

 used extensively in Illinois in windbreak and forest plantings as 

 well as for specimen trees in ornamental plantings. They prefer 

 an acid soil. 



The male and female flowers are produced separately and 

 as small cones on the same tree. The pollen is disseminated by 

 wind. 



The three pines native to Illinois are eastern white pine 

 {Pinus strohus) , jack pine (P. bcmksiana) , and short-leaf pine 

 (P. echinata) . Introduced species that are planted extensively 

 include red pine (P. resinosa), mountain pine (P. viugo) , lob- 

 lolly pine (P. taeda), pitch pine (P. rigida), Austrian pine (P. 

 nigra), Scotch pine (P. sijlvestris) , and western yellow pine (P. 

 ponderosa) . Limber pine (P. flexilis) is used occasionally in 

 ornamental plantings. 



Eastern white pine (Fig. 86) is a tall, pyramidal, fast- 

 growing tree which reaches a height of 100 feet or more. It 

 grows on a wide variety of soils but makes the best growth on 

 sandy loam soil. In dense stands it is devoid of branches a long 

 distance upward. The trees shown on the front cover of this cir- 

 cular are in an area which originally had a dense stand. The 

 trunk is straight, slightly tapered, and not divided to a height of 

 60 feet or more. The branches are produced in whorls like the 

 spokes of a wheel, and usually there are five branches in each 

 whorl. 



The flexible, three-sided, blue-green needles (Fig. 86 insets) 

 are 3-5 inches long, grow in bundles of five, and remain on the 

 tree for two years. The very small, pollen-bearing cones are 

 about 1/^ inch long, in clusters of 12-18, and are produced at 

 the base of the current-season growth. The seed-bearing cones 

 are produced on other twigs. They are solitary or in small groups 

 of two to five and at first they are stalked, upright, cylindrical, 



