Fig. 250, Cone from the Isle of Pines. Fig. 251, Small form of cone. Fig. 252, Large form of cone and binate leaf-fascicle. Fig. 253, Conelet. Fig. 254, Magnified sections of leaves from binate and ternate fascicles. Fig. 255, Habit of the tree, contrasted with a tree of P. palustris in the middle-distance.
45. PINUS TAEDA
- 1753 P. taeda Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1000.
- 1788 P. lutea Walter Fl. Carol. 237.
- 1903 P. heterophylla Small, Fl. Southeast. U. S. 28 (not Sudworth).
Spring-shoots multinodal. Leaves in fascicles of 3, from 12 to 25 cm. long; resin-ducts medial, sometimes with an internal duct, hypoderm biform, endoderm with thin outer walls. Conelets erect, their scales prolonged into a sharp point. Cones from 6 to 10 cm. long, ovate-conic, symmetrical; apophyses dull pale nut-brown, rarely lustrous, elevated along a transverse keel, the whole umbo forming a stout triangular spine with slightly concave sides.
The species ranges from southern New Jersey to southern Arkansas, Oklahoma, eastern Texas and southwestern Tennessee, but does not occur in the lower half of the Florida peninsula. It is an important timber-tree, manufactured into all descriptions of scantlings, boarding and finish, but the wood is of various qualities. It may be recognized by the spine of its cone in both years of growth. Excepting the formidable armature of the cone of P. pungens, the spines are the strongest and most persistent of all the species of eastern North America.
Fig. 264, Cone. Fig. 265, Leaf-fascicle. Fig. 266, Magnified leaf-section. Fig. 267. Magnified scales of the conelet.