Figure 20. — Shortleaf pine type— a 100-year-old stand on the 

 piedmont. 



The longleaf pine occupies 32 percent of the for- 

 ested area in the southern Coastal Plain and 18 per- 

 cent in the northern Coastal Plain. Along the lower 

 and middle Coastal Plain it occurs chiefly on low, 

 level land, often poorly drained, where it is associa- 

 ted with loblolly and pond pines, blackgum, and 

 cypress. Slash pine, absent from the northern 

 Coastal Plain, is an important associate on the 

 southern Coastal Plain, where it forms 18 percent of 

 the net cubic-foot volume in the type. 



The most extensive remaining area of longleaf 

 occurs in the sand-hill belt extending northeasterly 

 across the State. Here the stands are generally very 

 thin, with a dense understory of scrub oak which 

 effectively prevents restocking of pine. In places 

 the pine has been entirely eliminated by cutting, 

 naval stores operations, and fires, leaving only scrub 

 hardwoods of little present commercial value or 

 promise. The better stands of longleaf (fig. 21) are 

 found in scattered tracts in Georgetown, Charleston, 

 and Berkeley Counties. 



Bottom-land Hardwood Type 



The bottom-land hardwoods cover 2,160,200 acres, 

 or 20 percent of the State's forested area; 26 percent 

 of that in the Coastal Plain, 28 percent in the north- 

 ern and 23 percent in the southern part. Bottom- 

 land hardwoods are of much less consequence on the 

 piedmont, where they occur on only 6 percent of the 

 forest area. The remaining high-quality swamp 

 hardwoods (fig. 22) are found largely along the major 

 rivers, particularly the Pee Dee, Santee, Edisto, Com- 

 bahee, Savannah, and their tributaries, whose bottom 

 lands comprise about a third of the area in this type. 

 Blackgum and sweetgum are the principal species, 

 associated with oaks, water tupelo, and cypress. 

 Cypress, in pure stands or predominating in mixed 

 stands, forms about 13 percent of the major bottom- 

 land hardwoods on the Coastal Plain. Approxi- 

 mately 10 percent of the river-bottom area has been 

 withdrawn from forest production to form .a lake for 

 the Santee-Cooper hydroelectric project. 



About a million acres of the bottom-land type is 

 in swamps, bays, and ponds containing, as a rule, 

 timber of lower grade than the river bottoms. Black- 

 gum and sweetgum predominate, associated with 

 other hardwoods and with loblolly, pond pine, and 

 cypress. The remaining bottom-land hardwoods 



Figure 21. 



-Longleaf pme type — a second-growth stand 

 approacldng sa^lug size. 



21 



