636 
MONOECIA MONADELPHIA. 
6. TjEda. Liu. 
P. foliis elongatis, 
ternis, vaginis elonga- 
tis, strobilis oblongo- 
conicis, deflexis, folio 
brevioribus, spinis in- 
flexis. 
Leaves long, by 
threes, the sheaths 
long; cones oblong-co- 
nical, deflexed, shorter 
than the leaves; spines 
indexed. 
Sp. pi. 4. p. 498. Mich. 2. p. 205. Pursh, 2. p. 644. Nutt. 2. p. 223 
This is probably the largest species of pine in the Southern States. Along 
the margins of swamps it grows sometimes upwards of an hundred feet in 
height, and 3 feet in diameter. I have measured the trunk of one, which 
was 72 or 3 feet long without a branch. Its bark is thicker and coarser and 
more deeply furrowed than that of any species. Leaves 6 — 10 inches, 3 in 
a sheath. Cones 2 — 5 inches long, conical. Scales loosely imbricate, 
armed with a rigid spine. 
This species is very abundant in South-Carolina and Georgia, along the 
sea-coast perhaps even more common than the P. Palustris. Its wood is 
used for all of the purposes to which that species is applied; but the heart or 
real wood is much smaller in proportion to its diameter, and even in its best 
state it is very inferior. It is therefore only as a substitute that it is em- 
ployed where the P. Palustris cannot be readily obtained. There is so little 
rosin in this pine, that when dead it decays entirely and forms no lightwood. 
Its seed is dispersed so easily and so universally over the country, that all 
lands which are thrown out of cultivation are immediately covered with this 
tree, intermingled however if the soil be sandy with the P. Palustris. 
Var. Heterophylla* 
Along the marshes near the mouths of the fresh-water rivers, (at least in 
Georgia) this pine is very common. It is frequently called the smooth-bark 
Loblolly Pine. It becomes occasionally a very large tree; its bark is as 
smooth as that of P. Palustris but in longer scales; it has more sap-wood 
than any of our pines, and its leaves I have found in some instances by twos 
and threes indiscriminately mingled even on the old branches. Not having 
had an opportunity of seeing Lambert’s splendid monograph on the genus 
Pinus, I was, until lately, accustomed to consider this as his P. Yariabilis. 
This species, (as all I believe of the real pines) bears aments of sterile flow- 
ers in clusters at the summit of the branches, the calyx yellow, tinged more 
or less with violet, the flowers when mature discharge so much pollen, that 
surface of stagnant pools appears to be almost covered with this “yellow 
dust.” Even in the streets of Charleston, after heavy storms, I have seen 
small pools margined with the pollen which had been born by the winds 
across the adjacent rivers. 
