Distribution. Middle and southern New Jersey; Plymouth, Luzerne County, and central, southern and western Pennsylvania to Columbia County, Georgia, Dallas County, Alabama (near Selma, T. G. Harbison), and to the hills of northeastern Mississippi (Bear Creek near its junction with the Tennessee River, E. N. Lowe), through eastern and middle Tennessee to western Kentucky and to southeastern and southern (Scioto County) Ohio, and southern Indiana; usually small in the Atlantic states and only on light sandy soil, spreading rapidly over exhausted fields; of its largest size west of the Alleghany Mountains on the low hills of southern Indiana.
25. [Pinus clausa] Sarg. Sand Pine. Spruce Pine.
Leaves slender, flexible, dark green, 2′—3½′ long, marked by 10—20 rows of stomata, deciduous during their third and fourth years. Flowers: male in short crowded spikes, dark orange color; female lateral on stout peduncles. Fruit elongated ovoid-conic, often oblique at base, usually clustered and reflexed, 2′—3½′ long, nearly sessile or short-stalked, with convex scales armed with short stout straight or recurved prickles, becoming dark yellow-brown in autumn; some of the cones opening at once, others remaining closed for three or four years before liberating their seeds, ultimately turning to an ashy gray color; others still unopened becoming enveloped in the growing tissues of the stem and branches and finally entirely covered by them; seeds nearly triangular, compressed, ¼′ long, with a black slightly roughened shell, their wings widest near or below the middle, ¾′ long, about ¼′ wide.
A tree, usually 15°—20° high, with a stem rarely a foot in diameter, generally clothed to the ground with wide-spreading branches forming a bushy flat-topped head, and slender tough flexible branchlets, pale yellow-green when they first appear, becoming light orange-brown and ultimately ashy gray; occasionally growing to the height of 70°—80° with a trunk 2° in diameter. Bark on the lower part of the trunk ⅓′—½′ thick, deeply divided by narrow fissures into irregularly shaped generally oblong plates separating on the surface into thin closely appressed bright red-brown scales; on the upper part of the trunk and on the branches thin, smooth, ashy gray. Wood light, soft, not strong, brittle, light orange color or yellow, with thick nearly white sapwood; occasionally used for the masts of small vessels.
Distribution. Coast of the Gulf of Mexico from southern Alabama to Peace Creek, western Florida; eastern Florida from the neighborhood of St. Augustine to New River, Dade County, covering sandy wind-swept plains near the coast; growing to its largest size and most abundant in the interior of the peninsula (Lake and Orange Counties).
26. [Pinus muricata] D. Don. Prickle-cone Pine.
Leaves in crowded clusters, thick, rigid, dark yellow-green, 4′—6′ long, beginning to fall in their second year. Flowers: male in elongated spikes, orange-colored; female short-stalked, whorled, 2 whorls often being produced on the shoot of the year. Fruit ovoid, oblique at base, sessile, in clusters of 3—5 or sometimes of 7, 2′—3½′ but usually about 3′ long, becoming light chestnut-brown and lustrous, with scales much thickened on the outside of the cone, those toward its base produced into stout incurved knobs sometimes armed with stout flattened spur-like often incurved spines, and on the inside of the cone slightly flattened and armed with stout or slender straight prickles; often remaining closed for several years and usually persistent on the stem and branches during the entire life of the tree without becoming imbedded in the wood; seeds nearly triangular, ¼′ long, with a thin nearly black roughened shell, their wings broadest above the middle, oblique at apex, nearly 1′ long, ⅛′ wide.
A tree, usually 40°—50° but occasionally 90° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, thick spreading branches covered with dark scaly bark, in youth forming a regular pyramid, and at maturity a handsome compact round-topped head of dense tufted foliage, and stout branchlets dark orange-green at first, turning orange-brown more or less tinged with purple. Bark of the lower part of the trunk often 4′—6′ thick and deeply divided into long narrow rounded ridges roughened by closely appressed dark purplish brown scales. Wood light, very strong, hard, rather coarse-grained, light brown, with thick nearly white sapwood; occasionally manufactured into lumber.