FOREST RESOURCES OF NORTHEASTERN FLORIDA 



Forest Description 



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In order to simplify the description and correla- 

 tion of data on area, volume, and turpentine 

 history, the forest types and species have been 

 assembled into four groups, namely, turpentine 

 pines, nonturpentine pines, hardwoods, and cypress 

 which represent distinctive economic and natural 

 differences. 



TURPENTINE-PINE TYPES 



The turpentine-pine-type group consists of those 

 types dominated by longleaf and slash pines. It 

 includes the longleaf pine, longleaf-slash pine, slash 

 pine, slash pine-cypress, and turpentine pine-hard- 

 wood types. These types are present on almost 70 

 percent of the forest area and dominate nearly 90 

 percent of the flatwoods, 60 percent of the rolling 

 uplands, and 35 percent of the swamps, bays, 

 ponds, and river bottoms (table 2). More than 

 80 percent of the gross cubic-foot volume in the 

 turpentine-pine-type group is in turpentine pines; 

 almost 10 percent is in cypress; 7 percent is in 

 hardwoods, and less than 3 percent is in nonturpen- 

 tine pines (table 3). 



A century ago longleaf pine probably occurred 

 in almost pure stands on more than 4 million acres 

 of this section. The clearing of the forest for agri- 

 culture, the development of fire protection that 

 enabled slash and loblolly pines to encroach on 

 the drier areas, and the failure of lumbermen to 

 leave sufficient seed trees for restocking, have 

 greatly reduced the longleaf-pine area. More than 

 500,000 acres from which the longleaf pines were 

 removed is today classified as scrub oak and scrub 

 hardwood type and is not now restocking to pine 

 (fig. 1); but the pure longleaf-pine type still occu- 

 pies nearly 3 million acres, or 39 percent of the 

 total forest area (fig. 2). 



WHEN the first white men set foot in north- 

 eastern Florida, almost 95 percent of the 

 land was in forest. For many decades this 

 condition was undoubtedly a handicap to the 

 pioneer settler, who had to destroy the forests in 

 order to provide space for the cultivation of neces- 

 sary food crops. Today nearly 1 )i million acres 

 of former forest land is cleared for agricultural 

 use; and an additional 173,000 acres is in towns, 

 villages, and transportation systems. Slightly more 

 than 81,000 acres of the present forest area lacks 

 the qualities essential for growth of commercial 

 timber and is classified as nonproductive. The 

 remaining forest (7,297,700 acres) is the most 

 valuable known natural resource in this survey 

 unit. 



Forest Types 



In the forests of northeastern Florida certain 

 species tend to dominate large sections (see map 

 at end of report). Within these broad boundaries, 

 however, other species occur groupwise on suf- 

 ficient acreage to be recognizable as distinct forest 

 types. Single forest species seldom occur in 

 absolutely pure stands; usually several species 

 intermingle. 



Because of the economic purpose of the Forest 

 Survey, key species of known value were used to 

 designate the 12 forest types recognized. In 

 general, the key species or groups of species con- 

 stitute at least 75 percent of the board-foot volume 

 in sawlog-size stands, or 75 percent of the dominant 

 and codominant trees in under-sawlog-size stands. 

 Furthermore, in the case of the pine-hardwood 

 types, the pine species group which designates 

 the type, makes up more than 50 percent of the 

 pine component. 



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