LOBLOLLY PINE 



Pinus taeda Linnaeus 



We are so apt to consider the various kinds of pine trees as similar 

 and uninteresting, that when a loblolly pine is investigated in its 

 blooming season in earliest spring, its curious flowers shedding their 

 clouds of dustlike pollen are an unexpected novelty. Produced plen- 

 tifully at the tips of the twigs, they are so abundant, as to give a 

 brownish tinge to the whole tree. The embryonic cones are inconspic- 

 uous at this season, reaching their full size only at the end of autumn, 

 but they enlarge after pollination has occurred. Loblolly pine is a large 

 forest tree occasionally reaching a height of one hundred and fifty 

 feet, with a trunk five feet in diameter. It springs up in clearings or in 

 old fields and is often called oldfield pine. The long leaves are usually 

 in threes. The wood is coarse-grained and brittle. 



Loblolly pine ranges from Florida north to Delaware and New 

 Jersey and west to Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. 



The sketch was made at Beaufort, South Carolina. 



plate 335 



