2 BULLETIN 244, U. S. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE, 
GEOGRAPHICAL AND ECONOMIC RANGE. 
Shortleaf pine occurs in 24 of the States. Its geographical range 
includes all the States east of the Mississippi River, except Wisconsin, 
Michigan, and New England, and six States west of the Mississippi. 
It extends from the Hudson River Valley in New York 1 south 
through all the Atlantic and Gulf States to eastern Texas and from 
West Virginia and Ohio southwestward through the Ohio and Missis- 
sippi Valleys to Missouri, Kansas, 2 and Oklahoma. The tree is dis- 
tributed over more than 440,000 square miles. This is much larger 
than the range in the United States of white pine, its nearest com- 
petitor among the pines. " 
Table 1. — Comparative distribution of eight species of pines having the largest ranges 
irithin the United States. 1 
gr)eci _ Area of dis- States rep- 
^ tribution. resented. 
: Sq. miles. 
Shortleaf pine - 440, 000 24 
White pine 381, 000 23 
Pitch pine 360, 000 19 
Western vehW pine 350, 000 14 
Scrub pine ! 317, 000 14 
Red pine ! 300, 000 14 
Loblollv pine ' ' 295, 000 13 
Longleaf pine 171. 000 ■ 10 
1 Areas derived from Forest Service data on the geographic distribution of pines in the United States, 
including approximately the exterior boundary of the botanical range. 
From sea level shortleaf pine ranges up to an altitude of about 
3,000 feet in the southern Appalachians. At or near sea level it 
covers more than 11 degrees of latitude, or about 800 miles. In the 
North the species is confined nearly to sea level. It attains its best 
development at altitudes of 600 to 1,500 feet over the Piedmont and 
at 400 to 1,000 feet in Arkansas. In both these localities loblolly 
pine reaches only to altitudes of about 500 to 600 feet, above which 
shortleaf is the only important southern pine up to 3,000 feet and 
the only conifer except scattering juniper above about 700 feet in 
Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. 
The commercial range of shortleaf pine comprises most of the 
botanical range except that portion lying in the States north of Vir- 
ginia and in the Ohio River basin. It includes preeminently the 
broad Piedmont region lying between the Appalachians and the 
Atlantic coastal plain from Virginia to South Carolina; the northern 
half of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana; all of Arkansas; 
eastern Oklahoma; and eastern Texas. Shortleaf pine is the only 
commercial conifer on more than 100,000 square miles of upland 
i Sargent. Herbarium notes, May , 1913. 
2 Britton and Brown. Flora of Northern United States and Canada. Illustrated. 
