Sand Pine 



45 



33. SAND PINE — Pinus clausa Chapman 



A tree of both coasts of Florida and the coast of southern Alabama, usually 

 on sand dunes, and reaching a maximum height of 24 meters, with a trunk diameter 

 of 7.5 dm. 



The trunk is often clothed to the ground with spreading slender branches, 

 forming a dense, sometimes flat-topped tree. The bark is about 10 mm. thick, 

 deeply but narrowly fissured into irregular, oblong plates with close light reddish 

 brown scales; on small stems it is thin, smooth, and gray. The twigs are slender, 

 tough and pUable, smooth and yellowish green, becoming reddish brown and 

 finally gray, and roughened by remnants of 

 the bud-scales. The branch-buds are ob- 

 long-cylindric, about 6 mm. long, with a 

 rounded apex, the pointed brown scales 

 shining and margined with pale green hairs. 

 The leaves are in sheathed fascicles of 2, 

 deep green, 4 to 9 cm. long, .75 mm. thick, 

 very slender and flexible, minutely toothed, 

 sharply short callous- tipped, marked with 

 10 to 20 rows of stomata and containing 

 2 resin-ducts, one of which is in the pulpy 

 part of the leaf, and 2 fibrovascular bun- 

 dles; they are rather Crowded and persist 

 for three or four years. The staminate 

 flowers are in elongated, crowded clusters, 

 cylindric, 10 mm. long; their anthers are 

 yellowish brown. The pistillate flowers are 

 lateral, short-stalked, subglobose or oval, 

 their scales ovate and long-pointed. The 

 cones, maturing the second autumn, are 

 short-stalked, usually clustered around the twig, conic when closed, ovoid when 

 open, 4.5 to 6 cm. long, mostly obUque at the base and dark reddish brown, 

 sometimes opening at maturity, but usually remaining closed for three or four 

 years, becoming hght gray; some remain closed and persist, becoming encased by 

 the bark or wood growing around them. Their scales are concave, prominently 

 ridged, and thickened into a central knob which is armed by a short, straight 

 or curved, usually deciduous spine; the seed is nearly triangular, 5 mm. long, flat- 

 tened, black and sUghtly roughened; the wing thin and fragile, red-brown and 

 shining, about 1.5 cm. long, widest near the middle. 



The wood is soft, weak, and brittle, light brown or yellow, with broad, resin 

 bands and conspicuous resin-ducts; its specific gravity is about 0.56. It is some- 

 times used in ship-building for masts. 



Fig. 35. — Sand Pine. 



