Longleaf Pine 



29 



terminal pairs, long-stalked, globose, about 10 mm. long, their orange-red scales 

 long-tipped. The cones usually mature and shed their seed in the autumn of the 

 second season; they are oblong when closed, nearly globose when open, 4 to 5 cm. 

 long, their thick scales terminated by an angular pyramidal knob with a deciduous 

 spine, bright yellowish brown on the exposed portion, purplish and brown on the 

 unexposed portions; seed obovate, about 2 mm. long, nearly black and roughened; 

 wing narrow, oblique, very thin, straw-colored, i to 1.5 cm. long. 



The wood is soft, weak, close and straight-grained, hght yellow or nearly 

 white, with very little resin, so as to resemble White pine or Spruce. It is easily 

 worked but not durable; its specific gravity is about 0.41. It is sawed into lumber 

 to a small extent and used in construction, for railroad ties and for fuel. The 

 inner bark and soft sap-wood is used by the Indians when other food is scarce; 

 they also use the inner bark in their baskctr)'. 



It is also called Prickly pine, White pine. Black pine, Spruce pine, Murray 

 pine, and Tamarack pine, and is closely related to Pimis contorta, some authors 

 regarding them as only forms of one species. 



21. LONGLEAF PINE — Pinus palustris Miller 



This very valuable tree occurs in the sandy belt bordering our southeastern coast, 

 from southeastern Virginia to Florida and along the Gulf coast to Louisiana and 

 Texas, extending northward in Alabama to the foothills of the mountains where 

 it locally occurs at an altitude of 600 meters; 

 west of the Mississippi River it reaches the 

 northern boundaiy of Louisiana but avoids the 

 river valleys. Its maximum height is 40 meters, 

 with a trunk diameter of 1.5 m. 



The trunk is tall, straight, and somewhat ta- 

 pering; its few branches, confined to the top, are 

 more or less twisted, forming an open irregular 

 head, about one third the height of the tree. 

 The bark is about 2 cm. thick, more or less fis- 

 sured and broken into irregular scaly plates, their 

 surface covered with thin close papery scales of 

 a hght yellowish brown color; that of the 

 branches is thin and scaly. The twigs are stout, 

 dark brown and roughened by the persistent 

 bases of the bud-scales. The branch-buds are 

 narrowly ovoid, about 3 cm. long and sharp- 

 pointed; their numerous scales are grayish white, their margins cut into numer- 

 ous long weak whitish threads. The leaves are in broad-sheathed fascicles of 3, 

 bright green, soft and flexible, 2 to 4 dm. long, about 1.5 mm. thick, minutely 

 toothed; they are sharp, stiff-tipped, and marked by many rows of deep stomata 



Fig. 22. — Longleaf Pine. 



