34 



The Pines 



Poor pine, Shortleaf yellow pine, Virginia yellow pine, North Carolina pine, North 

 Carolina yellow pine, Carolina pine, Slash pine, and Old Field pine. 



25. LOBLOLLY PINE— Pinus Taeda Linnseus 



This rather rapid growing tree occurs from southern New Jersey to Florida, 

 westward to Louisiana and Texas, also up the Mississippi valley to Indian Terri- 

 tory and Arkansas, reaching a maximum height of about 50 meters, with a trunk 

 diameter of 1.5 m. 



The trunk is straight and tapering; the branches are stout, horizontally spread- 

 ing, on the upper ascending, usually forming a round-headed tree. The bark is up 

 to 2.5 cm. thick, shallowly fissured into irregular, broad, low ridges, covered with 

 large thin close scales of a reddish brown color. The twigs are slender, smooth, 

 yellowish brown, glaucous and roughened by the persistent bases of the bud- 

 scales. The branch-buds are sharp or taper-pointed, their scales bright brown, 

 darker tipped and fringed. The leaves are in sheathed fascicles of 3, pale 

 green or shghtly bluish, slender, stiff, sometimes twisted, 1.5 to 2.5 dm. long, closely 

 small-toothed, sharply stiff-pointed, marked by several lines of large stomata on 

 each of the 3 faces and containing 3 to 5 resin-ducts and 2 fibrovascular bun- 

 dles; they persist for about five years. The flowers appear in March; the starm'- 



nate are cylindric in crowded clusters, curved, 

 1.5 to 3 cm. long; their anthers are yellow. The 

 pistillate flowers are lateral, soHtar}^, in pairs 

 or clusters of 3, oblong, 8 to 12 mm. long, their 

 scales yellow, ovate-lanceolate with long slender, 

 sometimes incurved, tips. The cones are nearly 

 sessile, narrowly conic when closed, cylindric or 

 conic-cyhndric when open, 10 to 13 cm. long,hght 

 reddish brown, opening slowly and discharging 

 the seed during the autumn and winter, but per- 

 sisting on the branches for another season ; their 

 scales are rather thin, slightly concave, irregu- 

 larly rounded, ridged and pjovided with a knob 

 which is surmounted by the stout, straight, or 

 somewhat curved spine, reddish or purplish on 

 the unexposed surfaces. The seed is rhomboidal 

 or nearly triangular, 5 to 7 mm. long, dark brown and roughened, its wing broad, 

 thin and fragile, pale brown and shining, broadest toward the apex, or just above 

 the seed, 2 cm. long; cotjdedons 6 or 7. 



The wood is soft, rather weak and brittle, coarse-grained with conspicuous 

 resin bands and light brown; its specific gravity is about 0.64. It is extensively 

 made into lumber, also selected for ship timbers and masts; it constitutes much of 

 the yellow pine lumber of our northern markets. The tree is sometimes tapped 



Fig. 26. — Loblolly Pine. 



