During its early life ponderosa pine bark is dark brown, nearly black, which prompts the local names “blackjack” and “bull pine.” Then it becomes plated and scaly, turning distinctive cinnamon-brown to orange-yellow. Bluish-green needles, 4 to 7 inches long, grow in clusters of three or sometimes two. The brown cones are clustered too, standing erect on small stalks and growing 3 to 6 inches long. Like most other pines, the ponderosa’s cones require two seasons to mature.
Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) is the most valuable and extensive timber tree of the Southwest, ranging in a 300-mile belt from the Gila National Forest of New Mexico to the Kaibab Plateau of the Kaibab National Forest in Arizona. It grows just above the sagebrush and pinyon-juniper woodland, requiring less water than most other commercial trees. Tenaciously the seedling withstands drought, often surviving on only the dew of night. A year-old tree will sink its roots 2 feet deep in quest of water, a 4-year-old tree more than twice as deep. In many places on these southwestern forest lands, as many as 6,000 to 10,000 young ponderosa pines stand congested on a single acre, competing for water, soil nutrients, and light.
At its best the ponderosa pine, rising to a broad, conical crown, makes a handsome ornamental tree. It also makes hard, strong, and fine-grained wood. High-grade ponderosa is used for doors, sashes, frames, and paneling; the low-grade wood for boxes, rafters, joists, and railroad ties.
Southern Pines are now recognized as a vast, important source for the Nation’s future timber supply. An indication of the South’s role in forestry is the fact that it produces fully 80 percent of all forest tree seedlings grown in the United States. The pine is the State tree for both Alabama and Arkansas.
The most plentiful southern pine, loblolly (Pinus taeda), often grows in moist depressions which in the early days were known as “loblollies.” Its needles are borne three in a cluster and grow 6 to 9 inches long. This rapidly growing tree develops a clean, straight trunk, reaches maturity in about 70 years, and sometimes yields 20,000 to 30,000 board feet of timber per acre. Slash pine (Pinus elliottii) is a beautiful tree of the Coastal Plain with lustrous dark green needles, usually three in a cluster and 8 to 12 inches long, and a purplish-brown bark. The two other major southern pines are shortleaf (Pinus echinata), with slender bluish-green needles 5 inches long or less, two or three in a cluster, and longleaf (Pinus palustris), with tapering trunks up to 120 feet in height, and dark green needles three in a cluster, 10 to 15 inches and sometimes 18 inches long. Longleaf and slash pines are the principal sources of turpentine and rosin, known as naval stores because of their early use in caulking wooden ships. Six other species of pines are native in the South. The southern pines have a variety of other uses, notably for paper pulp, housebuilding materials, fuel, and general millwork.
Yellow-Poplar, or tuliptree, distinguished by its excellent form and rapid growth, is one of the tallest and most valuable hardwoods in the United States. Widely distributed through the Eastern States, it grows in sheltered coves of the Appalachians in stands mixed with other large broadleaf trees and an understory of dogwood, azalea, rhododendron, and many wild flowers. It is the State tree of Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The yellow-poplar reaches heights of 80 to 120 feet (maximum recorded 198 feet) and diameters of 2 to 6 feet, with its straight, deeply furrowed trunk clear of limbs for much of its length. It may live 250 years or more.
Hardly any American tree has a richer tradition than the yellow-poplar. “Everyone,” wrote William Byrd, in his early Natural History of Virginia, “has some of these trees in his gardens and around the house, for ornament and pleasure.” Indians and settlers made dugouts of it. The Delaware Swedes called it the “canoe tree.” George Washington, who had an astonishing knowledge of many trees and their uses, planted yellow-poplars at Mount Vernon. Two of them, nearly 120 feet tall, still vigorous and growing, are now the tallest trees at this great estate.